


Thorns || The Dragon Prince ||

by Khaleesi_0f_Trolls



Series: Untamed Souls [2]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Divergence, Canon Divergence - The Dragon Prince, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I'll be trying to tie the events of season 4 when it's released, Injury, Kasef Redemption, M/M, Memory Loss, Minor Canonical Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Redemption, Romance, Savior sequel, Scars, Sequel, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Traveling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 35,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22193872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khaleesi_0f_Trolls/pseuds/Khaleesi_0f_Trolls
Summary: //sequel to Savior❝Even the most beautiful roses have the toughest thorns.❞🌹Reyna wasn't exactly expecting to find a human outside the Storm Spire, three arrows embedded in his body and so close to death. When the human awakens after she heals him, he has no memory of anything or who he was.
Relationships: Crow Master (The Dragon Prince)/Original Character(s), Kasef/Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s)/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Untamed Souls [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1721608
Kudos: 12





	1. 🌹 1 🌹

_"I need you to take care of her for me while I'm gone, can you do that Ibis?"_

_The skywing mage looked down at the small bundle of blankets his old friend had placed in his arms where a small Skywing that didn't look more than four months old with messy black hair, who was sound asleep. He looks back to the child’s mother, looking_

_"Nula you know I know nothing about caring for children, isn't there someone else you can leave her with?" He asks, attempting to hide the panic in his voice as he tries to hand the elfling back but her mother steps away quickly._

_"I can't, you have to trust me on this. I trust you more than anyone I know, I need you to keep my baby safe while I'm gone." She says, gesturing to the babe. “It’ll only be for a few days, you’ll do fine.”_

_"This is madness, you don't have to be a part of the patrol that guards the border, it's why we have Sunfire elves from to defend it!" Ibis tries to argue. “It’s dangerous, especially after that news of a dark mage attempting to infiltrate the border a few days back. You can’t just risk your life like that and risk making an orphan of your daughter!”_

_"I volunteered to do this, and I have no one else to leave her with." Nula stepped forward and placed a hand gently on his arm and gave the mage a pleading look. Oh he knew that look all too well. "Please Ibis, if something happened to me I don't want her bouncing from family to family, and you know how I feel about my own family. If anyone can care for my child, it's you, I don’t want her going to my parents."_

_At that moment, the infant began to stir in her blankets, a little whine escaping her lips. Ibis began to panic, unsure of what to do when Nula took her daughter back and began to gently hum a familiar lullaby he remembered them learning as children and rocking her until the child fell back asleep._

_"I'm going to miss you little one, but don't worry, Ibis will make sure you are safe." She whispered to her child before placing a small kiss on her forehead and handing her back to Ibis. "If I'm not back in a week, send word for the border to see if I'm still there. If not, take care of my baby for me. Make sure nothing happens to Reyna."_

_Ibis watched as his friend hurried out of his home and looked back down at the small infant he was now holding. She looked so similar to her mother with that soft dark hair that reminded him of baby bird feathers and soft grey-blue skin and a tiny round face. The child gave a little yawn and sleepily opened her eyes to reveal a set of dark irises instead of Nula’s bright amber ones. Those were definitely not from Nula, more likely from the child’s father or Nula’s father. The infant gave another yawn before sleepily reaching up towards him, and Ibis held a finger out for her to grab._

_"Oh no, don't suck on that." He said when the baby tried to stick his smaller finger into her mouth and gently pried it from her grip. "Goodness, you're as strong as your mother, quite a grip on you."_

_The baby gave a sleepy gurgle as her little chubby hands reached up to him, her stormy grey eyes looking into his. Ibis couldn't help but smile as he carefully adjusted his hold on the infant so she was nestled against him more comfortably._

_"Well, I guess you're stuck with me for now, Reyna."_

🍃🍃🍃

_Six years later_

"When am I gonna learn magic? Can I learn it now?" Reyna asks Ibis as they walked through the village they had recently arrived to, holding her hand tightly.

"This is the fourth time this week you've asked me that little one." The mage chuckles as he gently adjusts his grip on her hand so it wasn’t so tight.

"Tenth time." Reyna corrects him. "And I wanna learn cuz I wanna learn to fly!"

"Oh, you mean you want to learn to give yourself mage wings?"

"Yeah! _Manis fluma volantis_ and woosh!" Reyna released his hand to run a little ahead and jump, flapping her arms wildly. "Big wings to fly me into the sun!"

"I don't think you'd want to fly into the sun, it's much too hot." Ibis laughs as she runs back to him and stops as she starts running circles around him. "Maybe when you are a little older I can show you, for now, you're too little to learn."

"But you said no elf is too young to learn magic, and I'm six and a quarter!" Reyna protests as she stops running around to stop in front of him. "I can do it! Please? I'll be super good, promise!"

"Please don't give me the baby eyes, you're too old for- Reyna!"

"What?" She asks innocently and Ibis made a face.

"Just because you can make those baby eyes at me does not mean you can make me do what you want, I will not fall for it- this time." Ibis says with a shake of his head. "Great winds, you really do take after Nula. Come now, we're almost to the library."

Reyna wasn't really that big of a fan of libraries, unless Ibis was willing to read her something or found a book he thought she would like that she could read. And apparently this library they were going to was bigger than the other ones they've been too in the other Skywing villages, so that meant she had to be even more behaved.

"Now remember, inside voices and be on your best behavior." Ibis warns her as they start to walk up the stairs leading up to the place. "We don't want to be thrown out of here, and I need to do some research."

The inside of the library was quite big, a lot bigger than the ones Reyna had seen in the past. Walls as high as the trees outside were filled with multiple books with tall ladders stretching up to allow anyone to use them. Several chairs and tables were scattered about in the middle of the room with some smaller bookcases and one very large desk where a lone elf was seated.

"Is he the librarian?" Reyna asks her guardian, pointing to the elf.

"He is, I'll be asking him if he has the books I need." Ibis replies with a nod as they approached the tall desk. "And I'll ask him if he has anything for you to entertain yourself with."

The elf at the desk hadn't even noticed them approach, his attention on a book in front of him and glancing to the side to write something on a sheet of paper that was beside him. Ibis cleared his throat, still not getting the elf's attention.

"Mister librarian! My daddy needs something!" Reyna shouted and Ibis' hand immediately flew down to cover her mouth.

"Reyna! What did I tell you?" He hisses when he quickly kneels down to uncover her mouth. "You don't shout in librar-"

"Sorry, can I help you?" Ibis glances up to find the librarian looking down at them in concern before he quickly stood up.

"Sorry, my daughter isn't used to being in places like this." He explains with a nervous laugh. "She's a bit... impatient."

"Am not!" Reyna protests before adding, "what does that mean?"

"Meaning you have no patience." The librarian chuckles. "I have a child her age who's a bit of the opposite. So no worries, I'm not angry at her little outburst." It’s rather...amusing.”

“Amusing, right. Are there any books in here that you have for someone her age? Reyna wants to learn magic but she hates reading complex spell books, or at least something that’s going to keep her attention for longer than five minutes.”

"Well I do have some books for children her age, if she doesn't mind reading fairy tales or spell books for beginners."

"Yes!" Reyna exclaims loudly before composing herself. "I mean, yes please. Can I see them?"

"Much better, and you used your inside voice." Ibis said with a smile as the librarian climbs down from his desk to approach them.

“Come, I actually have a children’s section set up that she could read in.”

Reyna allowed the librarian to take her to a corner of the library where there were several child sized chairs surrounding a small table. Seated in one of the chairs at the table was a small Skywing elf who looked around her age, with soft fluffy hair that stuck out in odd angles and a pair of large dark wings that looked too big for their body poking out from their lower back and folded behind them. The little elf was busy doodling something on some paper in front of them until they heard the small group approach and looked up.

“Is it time to go home daddy?” The elfling asked in a soft voice and the librarian shook his head.

“Not yet sweetling, but I brought someone for you to maybe help stay quiet until her daddy is done using the library.” The librarian says as Ibis gently nudges Reyna forward. “This is Reyna, can you keep an eye on her for her daddy until he’s done?”

The young elf looks to Reyna, studying her with wide violet eyes that remind her of curious fawn until they nod and pat the chair next to them. Reyna looks back to Ibis and the librarian, who nod at her in encouragement, before she released her father’s hand to walk to the table and seat herself next to the younger elf.

“And here are some books to entertain yourselves with.” The librarian says as he walks to the smaller shelves and pulls out several books from them to place on the table. “Now, stay out of trouble, you hear me little crow?”

“Okay daddy.” The elfling giggles as he gently bops their nose with his finger.

“And that means you Reyna, I mean it.” Ibis adds before gently ruffling her already messy hair and carefully smoothing it down. “And be nice to them, don’t be a bad bird.”

“I’m not a bad bird.” Reyna mutters under her breath once the two adults were out of earshot and turns to the younger elf, who was watching her. “Okay, first things first, I am Reyna and I am not a bad kid. Daddy just says I’m too hyper and have no control over myself sometimes.”

“I’m Cici and I’m...not hyper.” The younger elf states, sounding rather proud of themselves. “Daddy says I can’t leave the library and wander the village without an adult or someone older to keep an eye on me.”

“How old are you?”

“Six!”

“Well I’m six and a quarter so...I can keep an eye on you and we can go outside!”

Cici’s little violet eyes widened in awe. “You can?”

Reyna gives them a grin. “Then let’s sneak outside and play so we both won’t be stuck inside the library, come on!”


	2. 🌹 2 🌹

“I think that should be enough studying for today.” Ibis says with a sigh of relief as he closes the book he had been tirelessly reading and gave a yawn. All he wanted to do now was just lay his head on the table and fall asleep for a few hours, but he knew he had to at least get Reyna and go find someplace to sleep and eat for the week. As tiring as it was to be traveling from place to place to give aid and brush up on his studies, along with caring for such a hyper child like Reyna made it more tiring. But he had promised Nula he would not let her daughter be left with her parents, and with good reason.

As nice and well meaning as they seemed, Nula’s mother and step-father were the last people Ibis would ever want to leave alone with a child who needed to have a close eye kept on her at all times. Reyna was prone to getting into trouble the second his back was turned, and the next thing he knew she was getting in scuffles with elflings twice her age and size. Both adults for some odd reason seemed to think it was fine letting Nula and her half siblings run wild when they were growing up, claiming that as Skywings they should at least have the free will to do what they want and learn of the consequences on their own. How such a level headed and mature elf like Nula came from such an irresponsible elf like her mother had always left Ibis confused.

And about a week after the news that she had died at the border, taking a dark mage who had been trying to sneak in to his death and her own, Reyna’s grandparents came around to collect her. Ibis had refused, going as far as going to the Skywing clan leaders for help in giving him full and permanent guardianship of the orphaned elfling when the two attempted several times to take her away by force. He had grown rather attached to his friend’s daughter, and raising her for six years had truly been worth the countless arguments and threats he went through just to have the right to raise her as his own and claim her as his own flesh and blood.

_ Nula would surely be proud of how far I have been going for her child. _ He thought to himself with a tired smile.  _ And I’ll never regret the choice of fighting to raise her and be her father.  _

“The children have been awfully quiet.” He hears the librarian, Ikaros, say and watched as the elf began to collect the books piled high on the table. “I’m rather surprised, but glad.”

“It really is too quiet.” Ibis agrees and frowns as he sits up. “But in my experience, that’s never a good thing, especially with my daughter.”

“I’m sure Cici has her occupied well enough to stay silent.” Ikaros assures the mage as he grabs another few books to put back on the shelves. “You can go check on them to put your mind at rest.”

With a nod, Ibis gets up from his seat and makes his way to the children’s corner of the library. Just as he suspected. No young eleves doodling away on the abandoned pieces of parchment left on the table and the books Ikaros had placed to keep the two entertained looked as if they haven’t even been touched at all. And they weren’t asleep under the table either, so that only meant one thing.

“I’m starting to suspect my daughter has ran off with your child and they are now running around the village with no supervision.” Ibis announces when he gets back to his table.

"They what?!" Ikaros exclaims, dropping the books he had been carrying to the floor. "Oh stars above where are they?! Oh no no no! Oh Zolar is going to lose his mind when he finds out!"

“Now we should try being level headed right now, I’m sure they couldn’t have gone so far.” Ibis tried to assure the librarian as he tried picking up the scattered books in his haste. “In my experience, one should try to remain calm.”

“How can I be calm when my child is missing?!” Ikaros practically shrieked. “Oh if you think I’m overreacting, you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen my husband lose his mind over this!”

Ibis had no choice but to follow the poor and distressed elf as they hurried out of the library to search for the two children. So far no one had seen Reyna nor Cici, at least until a fruit vendor told them she had seen the duo running towards the forge after one of the two children had gotten in a scuffle with some older children.

“Cici would never get into a fight, they’re too gentle for that!” Ikaros groans as they were heading to the forges.

“Actually, I think Reyna may have been the one to do the fighting.” Ibir corrects him and gives a small laugh. “You know, her mother was the same way. Always fighting the more bigger children to defend the weaker ones, it’s how we met.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, where is her mother? Shouldn’t your wife be traveling with you or is she too occupied with her job to travel with you and your daughter?” Ikaros asks and Ibis immediately stops walking. “Sorry, did I say something wrong?”

“Oh no, it’s nothing. Reyna’s mother...well...she passed away several years ago when she was a baby, and I’m actually her adoptive father.” The mage says waving his hand dismissively before proceeding to walk again. “But that doesn’t stop me from calling her my daughter. Her mother was my friend growing up, and we remained very close friends even as we got older. I promised her I’d care for daughter if anything were to happen to here, and here I am, raising the little rascal and trying to keep her out of as much trouble as I can.”

“All on your own?”

“Something like that, with some help from parenting books people of my clan kept handing me during my first month of fatherhood.”

“Ah, well Zolar and I never had any trouble having to raise Cici, my husband had some younger siblings of his own growing up so he knew how to care for children better than me.” Ikaros comments and gave a small chuckle. “I can never forget every moment Cici did something for the first time that turned my poor husband into a sobbing mess of happy tears.”

“That’s a rather odd name for a Skywing, no offense.” Ibis says when the forges came into view. “Now, which one does he work in?”

“All the way towards the back, he’s a blacksmith.” Ikaros says pointing to a forge that had a fire burning much brighter than the other forges. “And he’s not a Skywing, you’ll see what I mean when you meet him.”

The two soon reached the forge and much to their joy, they found Cici and Reyna seated on a bench watching a large Sunfire elf hammering a long piece of metal, humming to himself as he worked.

“There you two are! You had us worried!” Ikaros exclaims as he enters the forge to snatch Cici up, who gives a little surprised squeal. “Do you have  **_ANY_ ** idea how terrified I was thinking you may have fallen off one of the platforms and gotten hurt?”

“They are fine, it’s the other little one you should be worried about.” The Sunfire elf says as he stops his work to point to Reyna with his hammer. “Cici came dragging her back here after a fight, crying because her mouth was bleeding quite badly.”

“Bleeding?!” Ibis exclaims as he pushes past Ikaros to kneel in front of his daughter and pries open her mouth. “Ancients help me Reyna, you lost two teeth!”

“Only the lose ones!” Reyna protests when she pulled his hands out of her mouth and flashed her father a gapped tooth grin. “You should see the other kids!”

“Reyna I swear if someone broke a bone this time-”

“I shoved them off the bridge into a tree below us.”

“Reyna!”

“This one, I like this one.” The Sunfire elf chuckles as he lays down his hammer to pluck Cici from Ikaros and hoist them onto his shoulder where they immediately grab one of his curved horns for balance. “Scrappy little one, your husband or wife must be proud.”

“I don’t have a mama, mine’s dead.” Reyna states and Ibis shoots her a look. “What? Is true!”

“You don’t tell strangers that sort of thing.” Ibis scolds as he takes her hand and turns to the three elves. “My apologies, she normally doesn’t do these sort of things, I do hope Cici didn’t get hurt.”

“Reyna punched a boy who made fun of my ears.” Cici says with a small pout. “They meanie!”

“And kicked him in the shins too!” Reyna adds with a grin. “I kicked his ass!”

“Reyna!” Ibis gasped as he quickly slaps a hand over her mouth. “WHere did you pick that word up?”

“Uncle Rav!” Reyna says from behind his hand. “When he was drunk!”

“And this is exactly why your mother instructed me to not leave you with her wild brothers.” Ibis sighs in annoyance before scooping her up. “My apologies.”

“Oh no, it’s fine as log as a little chick doesn’t repeat that word.” Ikaros assures him, giving Cici a look.

“I haven’t introduced myself, I’m Zolar, Cici’s father and Ikaros’ husband.” The Sunfire said extending a large hand over to the mage. “And sorry if my hand is a bit sweaty and dirty with soot, I had been working all day.”

“It’s fine, really.” Ibis says, taking his hand to shake before retracting it. “Now if you excuse me, Reyna and I need to find an inn to stay at for the night.”

“Aw but I don’t wanna leave tomorrow!” Reyna groans as they started to walk out of the forge.

“I know dear, but daddy needs to catch up on his studies to figure out how to help the dragons get better, and Ikaros said some of the books I’m looking for are in the next village.”

"You know, we can take care of her while you are away." Ikaros suggests as he and his husband stepped out of the forge and Zolar nods in agreement. "That way Reyna could have a somewhat permanent place to stay, and you can go and do your studies."

"Can I Ibis? Can I?" Reyna begged as he set her on the ground. "Pleeeeeeease? I’ll behave, a lot! I won’t fight I promise!"

"She's making the baby eyes and face, isn't she?" Ibis mutters as he turns his head away, not wanting to see those big grey eyes of hers make his heart melt.

Both elves look back to Reyna to see her staring right at her guardian with sad eyes and looking ready to start crying.

"Umm...she looks like she's gonna cry." Ikaros comments.

"Ancients help me." Ibis mutters before releasing a defeated sigh. "Alright then, you can stay with them while I'm gone. I know I made a promise to your mother years ago that I would be the one to care for you, so let's home her spirit doesn't manifest and tries to murder me because I asked someone to look after you."

"Yay!" Cici and Reyna cheered as the smaller elf was placed down on the ground they hugged tightly.

"This is gonna be the best time ever!" Reyna exclaims in excitement as she practically lifts Cici off the ground. “We’re gonna be best friends!”

“Very best friends!” Cici adds happily.

“This is making me feel quite emotional.” Zolar says with a small sniffle and wipes away what Ibis was sure was a tear from his eye. “Cici has been having a hard time making friends, and this is the first time I've ever seen someone befriend them so quickly."

"Well I hope it won't be any trouble, but I'll have to warn you, Reyna is a bit of a handful." Ibis says, casting his daughter a knowing look and she returned it by sticking her tongue out at him. "Keep a very close eye on her."

"You know you can also stay us, so you won't need to find an inn every time you are here." Ikaros suggests. "Plus that means Reyna will get to see you more when you come back."

"Well...I suppose it wouldn't hurt, but I wouldn't want to intrude."

"Oh we have enough room in the house for two more elves, maybe even more. Now come, you two must be very hungry."

🍃🍃🍃

Living in Cici’s home really was odd at first for Reyna. She was so used to waking up in a different place every other day and snuggled up to Ibis, but after the first few weeks she became adjusted to it. She actually found herself growing comfortable to waking up with Cici snuggled up next to her under the warm blankets and to the smell of breakfast being made in the kitchen downstairs. And seeing Ikaros and Zolar in the morning with Ibis (when he came back from his travels to check on her), chatting as if they all had been living in the same home for years was something she had began to grow used to as well. Every day had given her a chance to play and grow close to Cici and soon found herself referring to them as her younger sibling instead of her best friend.

Of course this led to her witnessing some more of the older children make fun of the little Skywing for some things, which she put an end to when she went after them with fire in her eyes, her tiny hands curled into fists and a few kicks to their shins and faces. Sure that would get her into trouble with the adults, but it was worth it when Cici would hug her tightly and thank her quietly.

She honestly couldn't remember how old she was exactly, like maybe when she was about seven, when Zolar and Ikaros asked her and Ibis if they would like to be a part of their family and make them a family of five instead of three. Reyna was all too eager to accept it immediately, and much to her joy Ibis accepted it as well. They had a permanent home now, one they could always come back to with a loving family to welcome them back at the end of the day. Soon she found herself also calling Zolar and Ikaros her fathers as well, not just Ibis, and calling Cici her sibling (for reals this time!)

Reyna honestly was happy. Her family was growing, and little did she know, it was about to get a little bigger.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cici, Zolar and Ikaros are ocs who belong to the lovely Horns_N_Jams! You'll be seeing them a lot more in the story!


	3. 🌹 3 🌹

_ Thirteen Years Later _

"You know, just sitting there and staring at the dragon queen isn't going to wake her up."

Reyna turns her head back to find her father standing at the top of the stairs, staff in hand and a concerned look on his face.

"It's been nearly seven days, she's still in that coma." She stated, turning her attention back to the dragon and gave a small sigh of disbelief. "I still can't believe all this happened while we were gone, the king dying and his son being taken and destroyed, the queen wouldn't be like this. And I don't blame her for being so sad either."

"The prince would have been hatched around this month if he hadn't been killed, by now we would have had a baby dragon running around the tower blasting lightning at everything and being a little rascal like you when you were little." Ibis agreed with a nod as he started to descend the stairs. "All we can do is hope that the queen will awaken soon."

"You know, she mentioned to me when she was still awake, that she dreamed of humans and elves becoming friends again. I still think she believes in it." Reyna said as he approached her. "Despite that a human had came, stole the little prince and destroyed his egg with him inside it, she still wished for it to happen."

"A lot of us did, but no one wants to admit it." Ibis sighed as he sat down next to her and placed his staff down between them. "No human has set foot in Xadia with good intentions in centuries, how will it ever come true?"

"Unless there is another way aside from walking through the border."

"Even that's impossible with the Sunfire elves guarding the place. Xadia is practically protected by a lava river."

Reyna glanced over at the sleeping dragon queen as she shifted in her sleep. It would literally take a miracle to wake her up, but she knew better. Ibis mentioned only once that the queen was slowly dying of a heartbreak even he couldn't fix, and if she died...well, she didn't want to think of what would happen if Zubeia passed away in this unconscious state.

She got up and walked over to the queen. Once she was close, Reyna placed a hand on her snout. "Please your majesty, you have to wake up. I know your mate is gone, and so is your son, but they would want you to remain strong and wouldn't want you to stay like this. The other dragons need you, and so do the elves."

"It's hard to stay strong when someone you loved so much was taken so quickly and in such a brutal matter." Ibis says loudly and Reyna turns to see him approaching. "For some it takes a long time to get over that sort of loss, and with others the pain never goes away, but they try to hide it."

_ Like you do with my mother. _

"She'll wake up soon, she has to." Reyna says firmly, looking back to the queen. "Even if we have to cast a big enough and strong enough fulminist spell to shock her awake, we will find a way to help her awaken."

Ibis nods before placing a hand on her shoulder. "I can handle it all from here, you should go back."

"But the queen, she needs-

"Go back home Reyna, she's not going anywhere. Besides, you know they'd want to see you."

"Are you sure? I don't like leaving you alone here, you know that."

The mage gave a small chuckle before he shifted his hand to place it on her cheek. "You're forgetting I can protect myself just as well as you can, I am the one who has been teaching you. Don't worry, I'll still be here when you come back."

🍃🍃🍃

"And this is why I don't date anyone!" Reyna snarls as she flung away the latest (and lamest) bouquet of wilting melodasies over her shoulder. "Ugh, I swear every Skywing boy in our village is so full of themselves and...uncreative!"

"He's still alive." Cici comments as they look over the side of the bridge where the flowers were tossed, as well as the latest suitor. "I think...yeah I was right. Also, he wasn't that bad, just…"

"Rude. He was absolutely rude to you and interrupted our conversation just to give either of us a bunch of dead flowers that couldn't make any noise, and a real creep as well." Reyna scoffs as she took her sibling's hand to walk off the bridge. "You know how I feel about people who are rude and creepy towards you and I."

"All too well, and I already have someone.” The younger Skywing chuckles as they let their sister lead them. “Hey, I know for sure you’ll find someone who’s nothing like the boys of our village. Maybe they’re not here, your one true love could be from a different race!”

“I highly doubt my “one true love” as you call them is a Moonshadow, or Sunfire, or Tidebound, or Earthblood, or even a Startouch elf.” Reyna sighs as the village square came into view. “Maybe I’m not even meant to be with anyone, like Ibis.”

“Hey don’t say that!” Cici gasps, releasing her hand to run in front of her and grab her shoulders. “Everyone has a special someone, even the elves who don’t have romantic feelings for anyone! And I know you are my sibling, but it’s making me sad seeing you getting frustrated with every Skywing who even attempts to flirt with you. And you never know, maybe the person you will give your heart to isn’t even an elf and they’re waiting for you right over the border.”

The idea honestly made Reyna want to laugh, but the last thing she wanted to do was scoff at Cici’s suggestions and hurt their feelings. She had heard in old books of elves and humans being in love and marrying long before Xadia was split in half, but even those romances were cut short because of how slowly the elves aged at a certain point in their lives. Even if the elves and humans became at peace with each other, she didn’t want to suffer the heartbreak of watching a human she would love grow old and leave this world without her.

"I'm not sneaking over the border for something like that." Reyna said making a face.

"You snuck over it last month to bring back that funny black bird that screams randomly at Ikaros." Cici points out with a giggle.

"Humans aren't the same as birds, and I highly doubt there are that many who are just as open minded as that human boy you met. And even if I did fall in love with a human, I don't want to fall in love with the wrong one who has no love for our kind even if I try to show them that I mean no harm."

"Aw now you're just being pessimistic."

"I'm actually being realistic, but whatever."

"You know what you need?" Cici asks, grabbing Reyna's hands and pulling them towards an overhanging branch. "Some good old fruit to take your mind off what's troubling you. 'Cause you look like you have something more troubling than boys on your mind."

Ooh they knew her too well. Talking things out with Cici while enjoying some good old Xadian fruits always seemed to make her feel better, something they had discovered a few years back. The two elves managed to find a fruit tree filled with plenty of their favorite fruits, those purple oranges that tasted sweet and sour at the same time before they went back to the bridge to eat them.

"I'm worried about Zubeia, a few days ago she had fallen into a deep slumber and we can't wake her up." Reyna says as she peels the skin of her orange to pluck a small slice of it out and examined it. "Ibis and I have tried everything, from zapping her with lightning to jolt her awake to smelling salts, but nothing works!"

"She's depressed, it's hard to come out of a depressive state like that if you lost your partner and your kid at the same time and know they'll never come back." Cici points out as they eat their slice of fruit. "And it's hard to when a statue of your mate is sitting a mile or two away from your home."

Reyna shuddered at the thought. Everyone had been absolutely horrified at the news of Avizandum's painful death, being turned to stone by a human king and his dark mage while he tried protecting his heir while his mate was out hunting. No one knew what had happened to some of the dragonguard who had been guarding the tower that day, but it was suggested that they had all abandoned their posts and left the egg defenseless.

"Shouldn't you be heading back by now? It's been three days, I'm sure Ibis needs you." Cici says, pulling Reyna out of her thoughts. "Not that Ikaros, Zolar and I don't enjoy it when you visit during the time you are supposed to be helping him."

"Ibis made me take a break, but I do feel like I need to head back." Reyna says with a nod. "Maybe I'll come up with a solution to make the queen wake up."

“You two always find the best solutions, you and Ibis are the best mages I know.” Cici says with a smile. “Why else did the Skywing clan leaders choose you two out of all the mages?”

“They chose Ibis, he insisted I come with them.” Reyna laughs, recalling that day.

About two weeks back all the most powerful mages had been summoned by their clan leaders to choose one who would go tend to the dragon queen, who had fallen ill at the time. Reyna wasn’t sure why Ibis brought her along, but she was glad he did because she got to see the outraged expressions of the more experienced and older mages when a younger mage was chosen instead of them. When the leaders asked if he wished to choose any of the unchosen mages to assist them, Reyna never thought she’d see so many angry Skywings until that day when Ibis insisted on bringing her along to assist him.

“So much for being the best assistant.” Reyna sighs as she discards the skins of her fruit off the side of the bridge. “I really should head back, but I need to at least say bye to Ikaros and Zolar first before leaving.”

🍃🍃🍃

“You be careful now, and I mean it.” Ikaros says as he released Reyna from his hug. “You sure you don’t want me or Zolar to accompany you back to the Spire? You never know if any dangerous humans tried crossing over the border and are lurking in the forest, like what happened several months ago.”

“I’ll be fine Ikaros, I promise.” Reyna chuckles as he gently pressed a kiss to her temple and tapped the tip of her nose. “If I got attacked I’ll just use my magic to protect me and the knife I have hidden in my bag.”

“You can’t use that herb cutting knife to stab someone, you’re lucky I took it to sharpen it out!” Zolar says, holding the said curved knife before handing it to her. “Now if you were talking about the other knife I gave you as a birthday present you can absolutely use it to stab someone.”

The look Ikaros was giving him made Reyna want to laugh. “Remind me why you thought giving her a knife as a birthday present was a good idea, please.”

“Well Reyna needs something to defend herself with if her magic can’t save her.” Zolar states, probably not even noticing the look he was getting from his husband before he scoops Reyna up in a hug. “These last few days have been a blessing, don’t be afraid to come home if you feel homesick! Cici come give your sister one last goodbye hug before she leaves!”

“You’re crushing her.” Ikaros mutters as Cici ran into the living room from the kitchen to join the hug. “Now remember Reyna, no detours when you fly, find shelter if you catch breeze of a bad storm and don’t approach any suspicious looking elves.”

I will, please stop nagging!” Reyna groans as she was released from the hug and took her herb knife back. “I’m not five.”

“Last time you did something stupid, you broke your horn, I have every right to worry.”

“Say hello to Ibis for us, and that we miss him!” Cici yells as their sister hurried to the door and flung it open.

“Will do, take care!” Reyna yells back before shutting it behind her and gave a small sigh of relief. She hated it when she had to leave her family, ever since Ibis started to teach her how to control sky magic and take her to see how he dealt with problems that required magical solutions she should have grown used to being gone, but she never could. Her father always assured her it was normal to feel that way, but that she would grow accustomed to it one day.

_ Assuming I’ll ever get used to it.  _ She thought bitterly as she hurried to the tall platforms built for messengers to have an easier time to take off and made her way to the top. The area was empty, giving her plenty of privacy to walk to the edge of the platform and adjusted her bag on her shoulder before holding her arms out and began to chant the wing spell. The symbols on her arms began to glow softly and the familiar itchy feeling of the feathers pushing their way and growing from her skin began to arise. Funny how she had always done this spell so many times and she still wasn’t used to the itchy feeling she got on her arms whenever the feathers grew, and even the side of her face and chest had felt a bit itchy as well. Once she was sure the wings were fully formed, Reyna took a few steps back before taking a flying leap off the side of the platform.

That exhilarating feeling of the fall never failed to make her heart race as she fell, feeling the wing rip through her hair and feathers before she spread her wings to catch herself. Reyna gave a huge whoop as she soared straight into the air and started her flight back to the Spire.

🍃🍃🍃

"Ibis, I'm back!" Reyna yells as she drops down to the stone ground of the Spire and shakes her arms, murmuring the release spell to let her feathers drop. Weird, no response from her father. Concerned and worried, Reyna hurried inside where she could hear new voices talking. She was barely making it around the corner before she felt someone grab her and start to pull her back to the entrance. "HEY WHAT ARE YOU-"

"Shhh! Stay quiet!" Ibis hissed as he managed to pull his daughter to the entrance before she wrenched free of his grasp. "Okay I know you just got back and you must be tired-"

"No duh." Reyna mutters, but her father proceeded to speak.

"But we have a problem. Two young humans and an elf are here with the dragon prince, and just earlier two more arrived. One of them mentioned that there is an army of darkness coming this way, I need you fly West and see how far they are."

"Wait a minute, there are humans in Xadia?!" Reyna exclaims. "And you just let a bunch of them in here?!"

"The two that recently arrived escaped from the army to warn us, the other two had found the young dragon prince and brought him back with the help of a moonshadow elf. And they're all perfectly harmless, especially the one who's passed out at the moment from tiredness." Ibis points out, holding his hands up in defense. "Please Reyna, can you do this for me? I swear when you come back you can rest and not have to deal with the humans."

"Fine, but I'm not talking to them- at all." Reyna says with a huff, removing her bag and handing it to him. "By the way, Zolar says to not be afraid to come home, and the rest of the family misses you too. Also Ikaros and Cici packed some food so there's a jar of moon berry jam and some good bread in there if you feel hungry."

"Well, let's hope we'll at least be able to come home again, I have a feeling this army will be a lot more trouble than we expect." Ibis said, accepting the bag. "Be safe, and stay well above them so they won't see you."


	4. 🌹 4 🌹

**After the Battle**

"Okay, can you feel any kind of pain when I move this?" Reyna asks the human soldier she was tending to as she carefully lifted the leg up a bit and started to move the ankle. The soldier, a woman, bit her lip in pain and nodded hastily before Enya carefully placed her leg back down and reached for a roll of linen bandages. "It looks slightly swollen, so you may have sprained it running down the hill or during the battle. I'm going to wrap this up and heat up some painkiller tea for you to drink."

"Is she going to be okay?" Asked another human soldier, this one male, as he watched in worry. "Nothing is broken?"

"If it was broken, her foot would have been twisted in an awkward angle." Reyna assures him as she was wrapping the ankle up. "Believe me, as someone who broke and sprained her ankles, legs, wrists and knees a lot as a kid, I know the difference between the two. As long as she stays off of it for a few weeks to heal, she'll be fine. But I do suggest she go see one of your human doctors to make sure nothing is really broken. Now I better get that tea to help dull the pain."

It had been about a few hours after the battle and since the dragon queen finally woken up, and Reyna was glad that she and everyone on the good side had managed to survive it. Since Enya had freed her from a net trap that had meant to catch a dragon, she had been swamped with patients, both human, elf and dragon that needed tending to. One human she had never seen before had even brought her a dog with an injured foot to patch up, explaining it belonged to Enya and had helped out in the fight. That certainly was the oddest paitent she had yet that day, right next to the dragon who was bleeding from it's paw because one of the enemy soldiers stabbed it there with a spear.

_ Never thought I'd have to heal humans, but it's not that different from healing elves really.  _ She thought as she was setting up a large pot with water to boil and started adding some dried herbs to it.  _ Aside from the two extra toes and fingers and the small round ears, their body structure is just the same as ours. _

Once the tea had boiled, Reyna proceeded to make her way through the camp with the pot and a ladle in hand to pour the painkiller tea into cups for anyone who needed to numb their wounds pain. A lot of humans had refused at first, looking so wary of the pale green liquid she was offering until an elf explained its purpose and proceeded to drink it up immediately.

"You look like you need some tea." Reyna comments as she approached Soren, who was holding the little glow toad creature called Bait.

"Oh I'm fine, I don't really like tea that much." The knight said with a shake of his head.

"I meant Bait, Rayla said he took a nasty hit from your father when he was defending the little prince." Reyna said pointing her ladle at the toad. "And it's a special painkiller tea, supposed to numb the pain for a while."

"Oh, makes sense. I suppose he can have a cup." Soren says with a nod, pointing to the bandages covering the creatures back. "And maybe some before he goes to sleep too."

"Here, this is the last of it so he can drink from my ladle." Reyna offers as she scoops some out and poured it into Bait's open mouth. The toad turned a bright orange color and croaked happily once he gulped down the drink. "There we go, you won't feel pain for a while. And hopefully by tonight you won't go to sleep feeling sore."

"I really could have used that when I got the feeling back in my body after being paralyzed for a while. I was so sore I had to use crutches." Soren chuckles as he tucks the creature back under his arm, being careful not to hurt him. "So I was thinking, is the top of the Spire a good place to propose?"

"I wouldn't know, I've only been here for a few days." Reyna responds with a shrug and chuckles. "Why, asking your lady for her hand?"

She was joking of course, and she was assuming Soren was joking too until she saw his cheeks turn a dark shade of pink and his free hand flies up to cover his face.

"Oh- I was kidding I swear." She says quickly. "Wait Enya says the two of you aren't dating, why would you think of proposing to her up there?"

"Just a thought!" Soren responds with a nervous laugh and Bait makes an unamused noise. "Oh hush, you know nothing about love so you have no right to judge. I should...check on my friends...like right now- thanks!"

"You're… welcome?" Reyna says as he hurries off. Goodness were all humans this strange? Well Enya didn't come off as strange, and neither did the two other humans she called her brothers, and that human general who had came with the Sunfire elf army. Seeing those elves made her miss Zolar, and now it was starting to make her miss the rest of her family. Where was Ibis?

"Ah, I see you're painkiller tea is in high demand, and I was just about to ask for some." A familiar voice said and Reyna nearly dropped her pot. She turned to find her father behind her, looking a little scratched up, but otherwise still intact and very much alive.

"Father!" She cried out, dropping the pot and ladle and rushed forward to throw her arms around him. Ibis nearly tipped back for the force of her hug, but managed to steady himself and hugged her back tightly. "I couldn't find you after the battle! Where were you?! You had me worried!"

"Helping the other elves deal with some of the captured soldiers, got a bit banged up but otherwise, I'm fine." Ibis said and released her to examine. "Looks like you took quite a few nasty hits too."

"Someone had the bright idea to knock me out of the sky with a net, but I got freed later so I'm fine." Reyna assures him. "I didn't like getting poked with a spear."

"Well the important thing is that we're alright, the dragon prince is safe, and our side won with small casualties. Come, I'll help you make some more of that tea. It'll be easier to distribute more with two elves."

🍃🍃🍃

"I swear Ibis I'm going to die of boredom if I stay here another moment."

The mage gives an exasperated sigh as he opens his eyes to find his daughter doing a handstand against a wall across the room. "I told you, if you're that bored come meditate with me or go through your herbs and toss out anything that's already rotting."

"Not doing the first one, already did the last one and everything this still fresh." Reyna responds as she lets her legs drop to the floor to righten herself. "Why do we have to stay here? Can't we go home already?"

"The queen gave us specific orders to stay here and guard the tower while she goes to Katolis to work out a peace treaty with the young human king and queen and the other three kingdoms." Ibis responds, closing his eyes and straightening his posture. "Go sweep up our quarters if you are bored."

"Can't I go outside? I feel like I'm going to go nuts staying inside this mountain. Also, I have nothing else to do, and if I don't do anything I'm probably going to break something out of boredom."

It had been a few hours since the dragon queen and prince had left with the humans to work on a peace treaty with the elves, but she had instructed the two Skywings to stay in the Spire to apparently guard it. Who was going to try attacking a tall and empty mountain that had some high air pressure?

"I'm serious, I might break something."

Ibis gave another exasperated sigh, already sounding like he was going to lose his patience. "Alright fine, I suppose it wouldn't hurt, just don't stray too far." Her guardian finally says. "Also be careful, there may be some soldiers who evaded capture possibly running about and they could be lurking around here."

Reyna beamed happily before rushing over and giving him a quick peck on the cheek. "Will do, I'll be back and I'll be careful. Bye!"

"I mean it, be careful!"

While most people thought taking the stairs to get off the Spire safe, Reyna always felt that leaping off the ledge more fun, especially since she could give herself wings. After enough practice and having Ibis or Ikaros save her from being a feathery pancake, Reyna felt like a true professional and perfectionist with this spell when she leapt off high places. Reyna was already rushing towards the edge of the cliff, her arms growing slightly itchy before she leapt off the side.

"Manis, plumis, volantis!" She gave a loud whoop as she spread her wings new wings, spiraling into the open blue sky. No matter how many times she had done this, she always loved that exhilarated feeling of the rush of the wind in her hair, this was what freedom felt like.

After a while she landed in the grass and flopped to the ground with a happy sigh. Being cooped up in that mountain for over a day was awful, but being out here was more relaxing than meditating with Ibis. So far she hadn't seen any of those dark magic soldiers, and she doubted any of them would have stuck around once they saw they had lost, so she probably wouldn't have to worry about them coming to attack her.

_ It feels so peaceful now.  _ She thought to herself with a smile as she looked up at the sky.  _ Like actually peaceful, no sense of dread hanging over us. _

Maybe when the queen returned she and Ibis could go home, and the second they got home she wanted to do nothing but pass out on her comfortable bed until she felt well rested enough. And maybe if she had time between the callings she’d get with elves who needed healing or some herbs she could spend time with Ikaros cleaning up the library, test out some new weapons Zolar had created during the week to make sure they were alright, make sure Ibis wasn’t spending too much time in the family study or the library, and spending time with Cici doing whatever they wanted.

And speaking of Cici, how were they going to react to the news of Xadia now being at peace with the human kingdoms? Well, obviously happy since that meant they’d get to see that human boy more without having to worry about getting caught and seen as a threat. Ooh the dads were going to lose their minds once they found out (but they won’t because she wasn’t the type to rat out her sibling for something harmless), but they’d probably get over it after a while. But just because humans and elves were at peace didn’t mean a lot of them would welcome them with open arms, seeing how many soldiers followed that mage into battle and were willing to be touched by dark magic just to fight the elves was enough proof.

_ At least I know humans who are friendly and sort of became friends with one, that’s a start. And I should probably head back...in a few minutes. _

Sitting up and dusting her legs off, Reyna decides to walk to the battlefield area. There were still several weapons left by the enemy, along with several arrows, discarded chains that had been used to capture the dragons, and just one badly dented Sunfire shield just scattered among the place. Such weapons should have been removed from the place, but she guessed no one had time or thought it was such a big deal to pick those up. Reyna felt her foot hit something and looked down to find some strange weapon down next to it.

_ What an odd weapon. _ Reyna thought as she bends down to pick up the strange object that has a strangely curved blade. It looked like some kind of axe but with a more thinner handle, like one of a spear.  _ And the handle looks like it was broken off too, like it was attached to a longer staff or handle of some kind. Doesn't look like any of the weapons the fighters on our side were using in the battle. _

Reyna remembered that the Sunfire elves had just their swords and shields, both Soren, Enya and the human named Amaya had been carrying swords as well, and the new humans who showed up at the last minute were carrying nothing but archery bows and spears or swords. But she was quite sure she had seen one or two of the dark soldiers had been carrying weapons similar to this one in her hand. Well the owner was probably either dead, ran off or was led off as a prisoner back to the human kingdoms.

Deciding to walk around to the first ledge of the Spire where Reyna recalled one of the humans standing there to blast the enemy with sky magic to keep them away, Reyna made her way up the steep slope, quietly humming to herself as she did. Ibis was probably going to scold her for staying out so long, but it’s not like she was actually planning on walking all the way back up the stairs when she had a pair of wings to carry her. As she was walking, the young mage noticed something ahead that looked like...a foot?

_ What in the winds...is that a body?!  _ Reyna immediately rushed forward to find it was a body, looking very much dead.  _ A...a human? _ She bent down to examine the body, wondering if her suspicions were correct. Indeed it was a human, and a male from the looks of it. She could see numerous scars through the rips in his clothing, an arrow poking out of his chest and right eye and she could see his chest barely rising and falling.  _ Great stars in the sky, he's still alive! But how?! _

"Hey, hey! Can you hear me?" She yells, gently shaking his shoulder to wake him up. The human gave a small groan, but did not even open his eyes. Okay still alive but barely unconscious, that's an okay sign, right?

_ Can I carry him up the mountain? If he was awake I could, but I can't fly him up if he's like this. Oh wait, I know! _

Reyna carefully slipped one arm under the human's back and carefully tried to lift him up before turning to the sky and giving a loud cry. She heard a familiar roar from the clouds and out flew a familiar green and gold dragon that she had healed earlier after the battle that swooped down and lands near them. The dragon caught sight of the human in Reyna's arms and gave a loud hiss, jerking back in alarm.

"No it's okay, he's unconscious, he needs help!" The young mage says as she tries getting the man up. "I need you to carry him back up to the Spire, I can't carry him!"

The dragon gave a small growl, looking quite unsure before she grabs the human in her talons as gently as she could and took off into the air with Reyna right behind her. Once they reached the top of the Spire, she quickly blasted the human with the last breath spell to keep him breathing and thanked the dragon for her help. As carefully as she could, the young mage scooped up the human in her arms and hurried into the Spire. Her healing supplies were stashed away in her room, and she needed Ibis’ help in healing this human.

"Hey Ibis! Guess what I found passed out outside the Storm Spire!" She shouts when she sees her father, thankfully still in the mountain and busy sweeping.

"Great winds Reyna!" Ibis shouted in alarm when he saw what she was carrying and dropped his broom. "What are you doing with a human corpse?!"

"Still alive, and I'm nursing him back to health." She responds as she walks past him and carefully places the body down on the ground. “Luckily a dragon was willing to help me carry him back up here.”

"You sure it- I mean he is still alive?" Ibis asks hesitantly, gesturing to the arrows.

"Still breathing, surprisingly, but unless I get the arrows out quickly he won't have much time left."


	5. 🌹 5 🌹

"There, he's stable, for now at least." Ibis sighed in relief as Reyna finished bandaging the last of the human's wounds. "So, what are you going to do now?"

"Wait for him to wake up, and hope we got rid of any infections from the arrows." She responds as she tied off the binding around the human's hand and examines her work. "Assuming he manages to live, he won't be able to see out of his injured eye."

“It’s better than nothing.”

It had taken them forever to remove the arrows, disinfect the wounds before covering them up with some linen bandages. Twice Reyna thought the human was going to die on them, but thankfully he never did. And of course, several times she had to pour the painkiller tea down his throat in hopes of numbing the pain. 

Once Ibis had walked off to attend to something, Reyna decided to take the chance to examine this human she had rescued. His dark skin was marred with numerous scars that looked like large cracks that stood out, long dark hair that felt rather gross under her fingers probably from the lack of baths and dirt, his clothes were in tatters and he was covered in dirt everywhere. Maybe cleaning him up would be a good idea, and to find any other wounds she may have missed that were hiding under the grime.

Three bowls of clean water and several rags later the human was cleaned. So far Reyna hadn't found any new wounds on his exposed skin and he seemed to be in okay condition for now, so all she had to do now was let him rest and hope he would wake up, hopefully before the dragon queen returned.

_ I should get him a blanket, he feels a bit cold. _ Getting up, Reyna hurried into the room she and Ibis slept in to grab her two blankets and hurried back. One she carefully draped over the human before folding the other one and tucking it under his head to act as a pillow, which seemed to make him more comfortable since he seemed a bit more relaxed now. She had to pull out his injured and bandaged hand from under the blanket and carefully laid it over his chest, just in case she had to examine it again.

_ Were all humans hands that big? _ Reyna wondered to herself. Curious, she gently lifted up the bandaged hand to examine it. She never understood the purpose of that tiny finger on humans, you needed thumbs to be able to grasp things better, pointer fingers to point at things, the longest finger used for...she wasn't sure what, and the ring finger was for rings (duh). She probably would have to ask Enya or Soren what was the use of a pinkie finger next time she saw them.

Curious, she carefully placed her own hand against the humans hand, careful not to apply pressure to it and nearly burst out laughing when she saw how big it was compared to hers. Her laughter was cut short however when the human gave a small groan and the hand she was holding was now grasping hers in a strong grip. Reyna started to panic and tried pulling her hand out of his grasp, attempting to lift his fingers to free herself.

"What are you doing?" Ibis suddenly asks, appearing right behind her and Reyna nearly screams.

"Oh nothing! I was just…examining the bandages!" She quickly says and gives a nervous laugh. "He just unconsciously grabbed my hand and now I'm stuck."

"Here, let me help." Ibis places down the blankets he was carrying next to the human and carefully loosens his grip on Reyna’s hand before placing it back down. “There, now I brought some blankets in case you wanted to stay by him to make sure he’s alright. And don’t say you weren’t planning too, you said the same thing a few years back when Zolar was sick with that weird cold that made him too hot to touch.”

“First off I was eleven and I didn’t want Ikaros to accidentally burn himself again after he made the mistake of touching Zolar’s forehead to see if he had a fever- which he did.” Reyna corrects him. “And second of all, this human is my patient so I am obligated to stay at his side and make sure he doesn’t die on me.”

“Just don’t get too attached to him, if my suspicions are correct he looks like he was a part of that dreaded dark magic army.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well have you noticed the strange marks on his body?” Ibis carefully pulls back the blanket and gestures to the human. “The marks and scars that look like cracks among his skin that stand out so much? Where have we seen them, yesterday in the battle. All those soldiers on the enemy side had markings like these were their skin was turned to stone and split open with fire in their veins, much like the magma creature that once roamed the border of Xadia.”

“I...I haven’t noticed.” Reyna admits and looks to the huma’s face in concern. She hadn’t even thought that this human was a part of the enemy army that had attacked Xadia, but did this mean she had to stop treating him? She couldn’t, it felt unfair and wrong just to let him die because he fought on the wrong side. “But I won’t stop trying to treat him until he recovers. If he wakes up and finds out a pair of elves saved him, I’ll explain what happened and ask if he wants to be returned home and treated by his own doctors.”

“Seems fair.” Ibis says with a nod. “But if he wakes up, I do hope he at least appreciates what you did despite what he has done.”

🍃🍃🍃

That night Reyna could not sleep. Every time she felt like she was about to drift off, she’d jolt awake and look over at the unconscious human. So far he seemed fine, but she had to be watchful at least to make sure his wounds weren’t getting infected or to see if he was still alive. Last thing she needed was a dead body in the lair of the storm archdragons and have to explain to the queen why it was there.

At the moment she was awake, glancing over at the human. What had led him to side with such an evil man like that dark mage? What had happened to him that led him to allowing such a man to turn him into something so dangerous? So many questions she wanted to ask the unconscious human, but they'd probably have to wait until he woke up and was hopefully in a good mood. Just then, the human made a small noise and his face twisted in pain. Reyna immediately sat up and threw her blankets back as the human started to squirm and thrash as if in pain and mumbling under his breath.

“No...no, please no…” She hears him say and feels a pang of pity.

"Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay.” She says softly, getting up to kneel next to him and placed a hand on his cheek. “It’s alright, your nightmare isn’t real.”

The human seemed to relax at her touch, letting out a small sigh of relief as she began to hum softly. Her humming seemed to be helping a bit, so she kept at it until the human relaxed as she moves herself to now be kneeling behind him and gently lifts his head from the folded blanket and set it on her lap before setting his head down on it.

"Where the north wind meets the sea, there's a river full of memory. Sleep my darling safe and sound, for in this river all is found." Reyna softly sang as she and gently brushes away some of his hair from his face. "In her waters deep and true, lie the answers and a path for you. Dive down deep into her sound, but not too far or you'll be drowned."

She fondly remembered Ibis softly singing this to her and Cici when they were little to put them to bed, gently stroking the bridge of their nose to make them sleepy as his soft voice lulled them into a deep slumber before tucking them into their beds. Her singing seemed to help the human, causing him to relax and slip back into a peaceful slumber.

“Reyna? Is everything alright?” She hears Ibis call out and turned to see him approaching.

“He’s fine, just had a nightmare.”

Ibis glances at the human, whose head was resting on his daughter’s lap before nodding. “Well, maybe that means he’s closer to waking up. “Hopefully by morning he’ll awaken.”


	6. 🌹 6 🌹

"Still not awake yet?" Ibis asks his daughter softly the next morning as she was checking the bandages again.

"Unfortunately not, but it’s more like he’s asleep now.” Reyna responds as she finished tying off the fresh bandages around the human’s eye and stands up to stretch. “And he seems more comfortable using my lap as a pillow too.”

“I’ve noticed, but try not keeping yourself in that position too long, your legs will cramp, and eat something as well. I’ll be heading out for a bit to check on the dragons guarding the Spire outside, stay here and wait.”

“I’m not going anywhere, relax.” Reyna mutters as he stepped out and turned her attention back to the human. Aside from last night, he had shown no signs of awakening at all, and all morning Reyna had been attempting to see if he actually would wake up with gentle shaking, making loud noises by banging her knives on that dented shield she found outside, but it was like he just slipped back to being unconscious again.

_ I could try shocking him awake. _ No that was a bad idea, especially if she wasn’t sure if the amount of electricity would kill him. Or she could ry applying a small amount of electricity to the spell, just enough to feel like a strong static shock. Ibis probably wouldn’t approve, so she was back to square one of finding a way to wake him up.

After a while, Ibis had returned to tell her that the dragons were fine and he had checked the perimeter around the Spire for any signs of those soldiers and found nothing so far.

“You know, if we do find any what are we supposed to do with them?” Reyna asks her father as she adjusted the human’s head to be laying on her lap. “I mean with this one he’s injured and not responding, but what are we supposed to do if we find a live one that either still in that creepy rock form or back to their normal selves?”

“Well the queen instructed us and the dragons to capture them and send word to her so they could alert the other human kingdoms.” Ibis answered as he sat down next to her. “And she warned us to be careful as well, they are dangerous.”

“Yeah I know, I was down there on the battlefield myself while you were off who knows where looking for dragons. So what exactly are we going to do with the human, when the queen returns?”

“I’m not even sure, but assuming he awakens we should probably be prepared in case he attacks us.”

Reyna gives a scoff. “Are you kidding me? He’s probably going to be in loads of pain, who knows if he can even sit up, let alone attack us. We have to at least help him.”

“I know what you mean, but it’s best to be cautious. Even a wounded beast can be as dangerous as a healthy one.” Ibis points out.

_ I wonder... what were you doing all the way out here so far from your home? _ Reyna wonders as she turns away from her father and gently brushes aside a lock of the human's dark hair from his face. Was he really a part of that monstrous army that attacked the Spire? The scars that he had on his body kind of resembled cracks similar to the ones the soldiers had on their skin where you could see what looked like fire inside of them. If he was a part of that army, how was he going to react to being saved by the enemy?

As her fingers gently brushed across his forehead, the human's uninjured eye suddenly snapped open and gave a loud scream that startled the two elves. He sat up in panic, panting loudly and clutching at his chest and his injured eye with a groan, now starting to feel the pain from his barely healing wounds.

"Well good morning to you too." Reyna mutters as he falls back on her lap with a loud groan. "Yeah I did you that he would be in pain when he woke up, really should have gotten something to numb all that."

"I agree." Her father murmurs in response. “Well at least he seems to be okay for now.”

"Where... where am I?" The human asked, placing his hand over his chest where one of the arrow wounds were and winced. "Why...why am I like this? What happened to me?"

"You don't remember anything?" Ibis asks in surprise. “Like before you fell unconscious?”

The human looks down to see the multiple bandages covering his chest and looks back up at them to shake his head. "No I...I don't. Who are you?"

The two elves look at each other skeptically before looking back to the human. "The ones who healed you, you were lucky my daughter found you while she was outside." Ibis answers, gesturing to Reyna. "She found you clinging to life with three arrows stuck in you, you're really lucky to be alive."

"Th...thank you." The human said looking up at Reyna. "I...why?"

"Well, I didn't think it was right to leave a human to suffer like that." She responds. "And it would have been unfair, especially since humans and elves are no longer at war with each other."

"Wait, why would we be at war?"

Oh boy.

"Ibis, could we...talk in private?" Reyna asks, gently raising the human's head off her lap and setting it back down on the folded blanket. "Just rest, I'll be right back."

Sending her urgency, the mage nods and motions for her to follow him to the archdragon's chambers. Once he was sure they were out of earshot of the human, he turned to his daughter with a nervous expression.

"We have an enemy soldier in our care who apparently has no memory of the battle, you think we can trust him?" He whispers. “He could be faking it, but that’d be easy to figure out.”

"This amnesia seems genuine." Reyna says with a frown and rubs her chin in thought. "I'm not sure how he lost his memory, but it may have been from the fall that didn't kill him. He did have a bit of a head injury when I found him, which thankfully didn’t kill him. And he truly does seem like he had no clue about our kind being at war with each other."

"Well whether or not he's faking it, we still have to tell the queen once he returns and we have to find out where he came from to send him back." Ibis states. "I know it seems cruel, but the dragon queen was very specific about what we are to do with the enemy soldiers who escaped-"

"While he's in this condition? Are you mad?" Reyna asks, now starting to feel a bit defensive of the human. "He needs medical attention, we have to at least take him to one of the villages for proper treatment to see if we can fix this amnesia and make sure his wounds and head injury don't get worse! We can't just abandon him like this Ibis!"

Before Ibis could respond, they heard a loud roar that shook the room followed by a startled yelp from the human and little excited yips of a baby dragon. The dragon queen and her son were home, and she did not sound happy.

🍃🍃🍃

"Explain to me again why there is a human in the Spire." Zubeia says sternly as the two elves and human stood before her. "I don't recognize his smell, and I certainly didn't see him among the other humans when I had awakened to find my son alive."

"I found him outside the Spire your majesty, I couldn't just leave him there." Reyna says, stepping forward. "I am only guessing he was a part of the enemy army, but he seems to have lost his memory from a head injury."

"Step forward, human." The dragon queen ordered. The human stepped forward meekly until he was right behind Reyna, looking down at the stone floor in terror. Zubeia carefully lifts one claw and gently pushes Reyna to the side and lifts the human's head up to examine him before taking a whiff and snorts in disgust. "He reeks of dark magic, but I don't think he was that dark mage that tried to kill my baby."

"He looks nothing like the mage, and I've seen him during the battle so I can confirm that." Reyna assures her as Azymondias flies over to them, chirping in greeting. "What do you suggest we do with him my queen?"

"Remove him from the Spire at once." Zubeia responds, frowning at the human, who ducked nervously behind Reyna. "Take him somewhere else. As glad as I am that humans helped return my baby to me, this one reeks of death."

"I'm not dead!" The human protests before Reyna slaps a hand over his mouth.

"He's still recovering from his injuries, where do you suggest we take him?" She asks as Azymondias tries sniffing the human's leg.

"Perhaps to your village, no one would know who he is and what he has done." The queen suggests as she reaches forward with one talon to gently move her son away. "He'll be safe there while he recovers, just don't tell anyone what he had done."

"My queen, are you sure?" Ibis asks, stepping forward. "He was a part of the enemy army, is it safe to take him into the village where the elves might attack him if they found out what he had done?"

"Not if we stay quiet about it and keep it a secret." Reyna points out as she stepped forward. "Queen Zubeia, if you allow it, I wish to be the caretaker for the human until he recovers. Once that is done I can return him to the human kingdoms myself and help him find out where he came from."

The dragon queen was silent before she looked down at her son, who gave a small chirp before she looks back at them.

"I'll allow it. If the human can't recover his memory by the time his injuries are fully healed, take him to Katolis and talk to the young king." She lowers her head to be level with the three of them and looks straight at the human. "I expect you to be on your best behavior little human, and not cause any trouble for these two or their family."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear next chapter will be longer


	7. 🌹 7 🌹

"I'm sorry for being a burden, really." The human apologizes as Reyna finished packing her things up.

"It's perfectly fine, even if the queen had come back while you were unconscious we would still have to carry you home." She assures him as she checked to make sure she had everything. “Alright, all my things are here. We’ll be leaving shortly as soon as Ibis is finished doing...whatever it is he is doing.”

“And that’s…”

“Putting my things away, and trying to convince one of the dragons staying here near the Spire if they can help us get home.” The mage said as he entered the room. “I’m not sure we can carry this human when we use the wing spell, and he probably will grow tired from holding onto us. So far I’ve been unsuccessful in doing so, can you try Reyna?”

“Well I can try, but last time I asked a dragon to help me carry the human up here she was very reluctant.” The elf said as she stood up and looked to the human. “You stay here and...don’t touch anything or do something stupid.”

“Why would she think I’ll do something stupid?" The human asks with a small frown as she hurries off.

"Well some humans tend to be a bit too curious and it leads them to make some bad decisions." The mage says with a shrug. "Anyways, feeling better after having that tea?"

"A bit better than how I was feeling this morning, the pain at the back of my head isn't hurting as much as it was earlier." The human admits as his hand strays up to his right eye. "But this still hurts, as does my hand."

"We already packed our things so we could immediately leave, but once we're on our way and find somewhere to rest I'll ask Reyna to make some more for you after she checks your wounds. Hopefully once we get back to our village we can get you some new clothes so you won't be draped in a blanket all the time.

The human nodded sheepishly in agreement. Reyna had given him one of the blankets to cover him, stating she didn't want him to be cold due to the majority of his clothes being ripped, which had surprised him.

"So, any chance you can remember anything? Like a name?" Ibis asks and the human shakes his head. "Well if there's anything you'd like to be called, just tell us so we won't have to keep referring to you as "the human" all the time, if that makes you uncomfortable."

"I don't have anything in mind, but if I think of something I'll tell you."

"Today's our lucky day gentlemen!" They hear Reyna shout as she ran back into the room with the fluffy haired baby dragon from before in her arms looking quite pleased with himself. "Prince Azymondias managed to convince a dragon to give us a hand in getting us home!"

"You mean...the baby dragon?" The human asks in surprise and the little dragon gave a happy yip as if to confirm his question.

"He's the dragon prince, the other dragons have to obey his requests." Reyna chuckles as the baby dragon climbs out of her arms to drape himself on her shoulders. "I had some trouble trying to convince the dragons when his little majesty came outside, gave a few chirps and one of the dragons agreed to accompany us for the journey. He's going to carry the human so we won't have to."

"But what about you?" The human asks. "How are you going to travel?"

"With these." Reyna held her arms out to show off the black markings trailing down to her wrists and gestures to Ibis, who had identical white markings painted on his arms. "You'll get to see what these do when we leave."

The three made their way out of the Spire to the entrance where Zubeia was waiting, along with a large black and blue dragon. Azymondias gave an excited little chirp and jumped off Reyna to rush over to his mother and the other dragon as the three made their way over.

"Your majesty, it has been an honor that you allowed me and my daughter to stay here to help you get better, and I do hope you remain in good health now that your son has returned.” Ibis said as he bowed to the large dragon.

“I appreciate your aid Ibis of the Skywings, your clans made the right choice in picking you to come help me.” Zubeia says with a nod and turns to Reyna. “Both you and your father did the right thing in staying with the other humans and elves to help fight and defend the Spire, and giving aid to the survivors as well. Though while I am not pleased about this human, it warms my heart that you decided to keep the peace and help him instead of leaving him to die.”

“Well we’re no longer at war with the humans, it would have gone against what the humans and elf who brought Azymondias home were trying to achieve.” Reyna says and bows. “But thank you for giving me this chance to help him, I promise I’ll do everything I can to help him recover and return him home as soon as possible.”

"I'll be sure to alert the humans when you send word of this one's recovery." Zubeia says with a nod before turning to the human. "Now you take care of yourself, this sort of recovery might take longer than you expect, but within time you'll remember who you once were."

"Uh...thank you?" The human responds and Reyna gives a soft laugh.

With Reyna's help, the human managed to mount the large blue dragon, who didn't seem all too happy about having a human on its back. Once he was on and holding onto the large horns, Reyna and Ibis walked to the edge of the cliff.

"So are you going to jump with me and do the spell or are you going to be boring and just do it here?" Reyna asks her father. "Because that'd be fun."

"I'm not going to be reckless, also I have a feeling the winds will be on our side today so we might get home sooner than expected." He responds and takes a step back before holding his arms out. "Manis, pluma, volantis!"

"Yeah, you're being boring." Reyna says with a shake of her head before turning around to have her back to the cliff. "Hey human, watch this!"

"No need to panic, she's not that crazy." Ibis says when the human and Azymondias gave a startled yelp when Reyna summersaulted backwards off the edge. "And she'll be fine, in three...two...one…"

"Come on slow pokes!" They heard the young mage shout before she flapped up to them, her arms now converted into a pair of black wings.

"See, what did I tell you?" Ibis says with a shake of his head. "No need to panic. Come along now, we have a home to return to."

🍃🍃🍃

"How is it that you can do that thing with your arms?" The human asks as Reyna was wrapping on a new bandage on his hand. "That wind spell thing?"

"Most spells require runes to be drawn, these markings on my arms are those." Reyna says as she carefully wrapped the hand up. "I need them repainted after a while, but they still function well as long as they're readable. But you can't do this because you are a human, and humans can't do magic. You need to be born or unlock an arcanum inside of you to do any kind of pure primal magic like us."

"What is primal magic?"

"It's...Ibis can you explain?" 

The mage looks up from his scroll in surprise. "Explain what?"

"Primal magic." Reyna says as she finishes off tying the bandage. "You're older and more experienced in it, can you explain it to the human?"

"Why do I need to explain this?”

“I don’t know, maybe because he wants to learn magic? Oh he can be like Callum! Enya said he unlocked his ability with the sky arcanum!”

“I am very aware of the young human able to do magic, he nearly hit me with a lightning spell to prove it."

"Hey everyone told me I couldn't be a healer because I got into fights and was super accident prone as a child, but look at me now!" Reyna scoffs. "If an elf like me can be a mage and healer like you, who is to say a human like our companion here can't unlock an arcanum inside of himself?"

"I was just curious, I'm honestly not really that interested in learning magic." The human spoke up and held his bandaged hand up. "I don't even think I can do anything right now with my body like this."

"Well hopefully in time you'll find yourself a hobby or something, who knows, maybe that can unlock a forgotten memory." Ibis says with a shrug before turning his attention back to his scroll. "You two get some sleep, I'll keep watch."

"Why do you need to keep watch? There's a dragon with us." The human said pointing to their dragon companion, who was asleep near Ibis.

"Because there are some things out in these parts of Xadia stupid enough to attack a sleeping dragon." Reyna responds as she grabs her blanket out of her bag. "Well, sweet dreams human. We have a long journey ahead of us."

~

That night the human could hardly sleep. He kept drifting in and out of the strangest dreams that seemed to last barely a few seconds where he'd be standing in places he wasn't sure he had been in before losing his memory. Some kind of old library filled with scrolls and books, at one point that large field outside of the tall mountain where he was found, another time it was an cold room with hardly any light that smelled musty, but then everything went dark. Standing alone in this cold darkness scared him, especially when he started hearing all these strange and unfamiliar voices whispering around him.

_ Kasef...Kasef be careful dear… _

That voice...who was it? It was loud and clearer than the whispers around him and sounded familiar, but to who did it belong to?

_ Kasef! Kasef c'mon! _

Now this voice was different, it sounded younger and more playful while the other voice sounded older and kind of motherly. Why did these two people keep calling him that? Was that his name? It felt right.

That name was now ringing in his ears as many other voices were now saying it, shouting or whispering loudly and it was starting to become overwhelming.

_ "Hey wake up!" _

His eyes snapped open as he sat up with a gasp before he felt a warm hand on his shoulder gently try to push him down.

"Shhh, it's okay. You got a little feverish just now." He hears Reyna say softly before he felt something cold press against his forehead. "You really had me worried there, you were kind of... crying and shaking like you were having a nightmare."

"I...I wasn't." The human says and Reyna gave him a look.

"You were also talking in your sleep."

Ah. The human felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment and hoped that it was too dark for her to notice.

"Well a good thing you didn't wake up Ibis, he's literally passed out cold." Reyna gestures to the mage, who was now asleep against the now awake dragon. "In a few hours I'll wake him up, you need rest."

"I...I think I know my name." The human says as Reyna gently pushed him back down to be laying on his back again."

"You do?"

Should he tell her? For all he knew it couldn't be his actual name, but it just felt like it was."

"Kasef."

He wasn't sure what sort of reaction he was expecting from Reyna, like maybe a warm smile, but she just gave him a confused look and said "bless you" before applying the cool cloth to his forehead again.

"No really, I think that's what my name is, Kasef." The human said as he tried to sit up but was pushed down again.

"Well I didn't say it wasn't, and since you have a name now we don't have to refer to you as "the human" or "human" all the time. Or "Fluff head" as I liked to privately call you in my head." Reyna points out and he could hear a hint of laughter in her voice before she carefully brushed some hair from his face. "Get some sleep, Kasef. We still have some distance to cross before we get home."

"Can...can you at least tell me what the village is like?"

"You really want me to go on and on about my village."

"It'd save me the surprise and shock."

Reyna gives a chuckle. "Okay, but then you'll have to go to sleep when I'm finished."

🍃🍃🍃

The next morning, Kasef awoke to something fuzzy touch his cheek and heard something squeak. With a groan, he opens his eye and sits up to find Reyna a few feet away tending to a fire pit a few feet away and humming. He could see some strange colorful looking balls of fur attached to her head and encircling it like some kind of crown that seemed to be moving. 

"Oh good morning fluff head!" She calls when she glances over. "Oh and I see you've made some new friends."

"Wait what?" Kasef asks in surprise.

"Check your blanket, you got some little fuzzies crawling on you."

Glancing down at the blanket that was still wrapped around him to find a small light brown ball of fuzz attached to his shoulder. He squinted at it and gasped in surprise when he saw a tiny pair of eyes blink open to stare back at him and let out a little squeaking noise he had heard earlier.

"What...what are these?" Kasef asks as he plucks the ball of fluff off the blanket.

"Adoraburrs, they're pretty common around here." She says as she stands up to walk back over to him and knelt down. She reached into the grass to pluck a little purple one up and sticks it in her hair to join the other little fuzzy things already nestled there. "Pretty cute aren't they?"

"Aw come on, there's a bunch stuck to my legs!"

"Relax, they're harmless unless you're allergic to their fur."

Kasef makes a face as he lifts his leg up to show her numerous of the little creatures attached all over his boot. Reyna let out a chuckle and plucked the one off his shoulder.

"You look ridiculous." Kasef comments and the young mage laughed.

"Says the one who's got a little nest of adoraburrs snuggling into the back of his head."

"What?!" His hands flew up to his head where he could feel little fluffy things nestled into it and groaned, earning a giggle from the elf.

"Here, let me take them off. You might hurt them." She got up and sat behind him to gently work the adoraburrs out of his hair, tossing the ones she managed to pry free back into the grass and repeated the process with all the others. “When I was little, my sibling and I used to come out to the fields with our parents to go hunting for these little fellas and try to make tall stacks out of them. Have you ever seen a five foot stack of these?"

"I've never seen these before until today." Kasef admits as he pulls one soft pink one that was attached to his blanket and gently gives it a small squeeze, earning a little squeak from it. “What are they even made of?”

“I don’t even know, and I’ve seen these things my whole life.” Reyna laughs as she picks another one out of the grass. “I think the most I’ve seen are near the Moonshadow elf villages, they love these little guys.”

“Wait, there are more elves?”

“Well yeah, we have about six different races of elves living in Xadia. Each race connects to a magical source and can cast magic with those sources if they are trained properly and can connect better with them. For instance, my father and I are Skywing elves, meaning we can do magic spells that can be empowered by the wind or by storm. Then there are elves that can connect to magic from fire or the sun."

“I...still don’t understand any of this, but it sounds rather interesting.” Kasef admits and Reyna laughs.

“You'll learn soon enough, while you recover I'll teach you some stuff of Xadian history and whatever we have on humans."

"So...where is the dragon and the other elf?"

"Ibis? Oh he went off to get us some fruits, and our dragon friend is off hunting a meal for himself, should be back in a bit. Come by the fire, I have something for you."

Kasef honestly wasn't sure what he was expecting, but he didn't like the sight of the weird colored water sitting in the large black pot that Reyna was stirring earlier that smelled awful before pouring some of it into a cup.

"Here, drink this." She said holding it out to him. "You'll feel better."

The liquid was a weird green color and smelled just awful. What even was this supposed to be?

"That smells disgusting." Kasef said, taking a step back.

The elf frowned but still held the cup out to him. "Drink it. Now."

"No."

"Kasef I swear to the ancient elf gods of my people, if you don't drink this tea I am going to force it down your throat."

"It smells disgusting! I'm not drinking it!" Kasef protests. "What did you even out in that-"

He barely had time to react when Reyna jumped to her feet and in one swift motion, jerked him down to her height with her free hand before grabbing his face to force his mouth open. His reaction to this was to struggle as Reyna fight to pour the gross liquid into his mouth and shouting something at him in a weird language in anger.

Neither of them noticed that Ibis and the blue dragon had returned. The mage and the beast looked at each other in confusion and looked back to the two arguing teens.

"Is it too late to take him back to the human kingdoms if they're going to act like this all the time?" The mage says to the dragon, who just shrugged. "Guess it is."


	8. 🌹 8 🌹

"Here we are! Home sweet home!" Reyna announced as she dropped to the ground. The dragon and Ibis land on either side of her, both tired but relieved as she was. They were finally home. Several yards away she could see the outskirts of their village, a cluster of numerous trees that looked like a small forest from this distance. Reyna hears a grunt and turns to see Kasef sliding off the dragon and managed to land on his feet.

“I’ll never get over that sweet relief of arriving back home.” Ibis sighs as he turns to the dragon. “Thank you for your help, tell the queen we made it home with no problems, and be sure to rest first.”

“Is that cluster of trees really your home?” Kasef asks Reyna as he approached her and tightened the blanket around his shoulders.

"You'll see." She says cheerfully as the dragon takes off into the air and waves. "Take care! And safe travels!"

"It just occurred to me just now that the other elves will be asking too many questions about him, perhaps we should at least have a simple response as to why we have him here." Ibis says gesturing to Kasef. "Perhaps that he was found here with no memory and we're trying to help him recover it?"

"So tell the truth but not the whole truth?" Reyna asks. "And maybe lie a tiny bit?"

"Well maybe we could tell Ikaros the truth, he would find out eventually, he can keep a secret."

"Cici can keep a secret too ya know, and so can Zolar."

"Won't they all be curious to know  _ how _ I got here?" Kasef points out. "You two said I got here because I left my home, wherever it is, to fight here."

"He has a point." Reyna mutters. "Okay we'll say you were a part of a human army who came to Xadia, but we're not going to tell them you were on the bad human side. How does that sound?"

"I came to Xadia to fight, I got injured and lost my memory, the big dragon back at the mountain we came from gave you permission to take me to your village to fully recover, that could work." Kasef says with a nod. "But...what if-"

"Relax, we'll be fine." Reyna interrupts as she points ahead to the trees. "Come on, it's almost supper and I'm hungry for my Cici's cooking."

The three walked until they reached the edge of the trees, where Kasef could see what looked like small huts hidden among the trees.

"It looks tiny." He comments. Reyna laughs and tilts his head up.

"Actually, a huge majority of us live up there, that's the main part of the village." She says, pointing up to the large wooden bridges and platforms suspended above. "Not many live down in the cottages, only a few like my family. So if you need anything from the village, you need to fly up there."

"Oh, but what if you can't do that wing spell you do?"

"You just ask someone who can to carry you up there, or have an animal that can fly fly you up there instead. We've got some pretty big birds who are trained to carry elves on their backs."

"Phoenixes, to be exact." Ibis adds. "And not just the normal fire ones, we even raise moon phoenixes, star phoenixes as well. But aside from them, we have other birds that aren't quite as large or strong to carry even a child."

"So...how do we get up there?" Kasef asks and Reyna grins.

"Put your arms around my neck." She instructs as she removes her bag and tossed it to Ibis. "I'll fly you up there."

"Careful love, he's probably too heavy for you." Ibis warns but Reyna waved her hand dismissively.

"I carried him into the Spire myself when he was unconscious, I can hold him just fine." She assures her father as Kasef ties the blanket around him to stay secured. Before she could even say the incantation, the three of them heard someone yelling Reyna's name.

"Reyna!"

Reyna turns and gives a gasp as Kasef looks past her to see a small elf with a set of wings sprouting from the lower half of their back rushing towards them.

"Cici?" He hears Ibis say as the smaller elf reaches them.

"Reyna!" The smaller elf cries out as they ran to her and flung their arms around her neck. "You had me, Ikaros and Zolar so worried! It's been too long since you sent that letter, we thought you were  _ dead _ !"

"Well I certainly am not, since you're hugging me so tightly." Reyna laughed as she returned the hug to the now sobbing elf. "I'm so sorry Cici, I know I should have remembered, but I was a bit...occupied."

"Please don't do that again, next time just write to us, or actually come back to the village and tell us yourself!" The young elf protests, releasing Reyna from the hug and trying to wipe the tears from their eyes. "Everyone heard there was a fight at the Spire and we thought you and Ibis got killed! You had us so worried, none of the family could sleep easily!"

"Oh you big baby." Reyna sighs as she pulls the small elf into another hug. "I'm honestly very sorry for not coming home as soon as we hoped. The queen had us stay at the Spire to protect it and…we found someone."

The elf looked up at her in surprise before they noticed Kasef standing nearby, looking around awkwardly. "Oh who's that? Is that a human?"

"Oh that's just Kasef, he's my prisoner."

"Hey!" Kasef protests. "I am nobody's prisoner!"

"Cici, this is Kasef, Kasef this is Cici." Reyna introduces as the human walks over to them looking slightly grumpy.

"That's a human." Cici comments when he and Ibis get close. "Where did you find him?"

"It's a long story. Where's Ikaros and Zolar?" Ibis says and gives them a hug.

"At work, the other is also at work worried sick to his stomach over you two."

"Oh dear." Ibis murmurs. "Well, best we get to the more worried one to put him at ease. Is he still at work?"

Cici nods. "Oh yes! I've been trying to get him to come home to rest but he refuses to. Come, I'll show you."

🍃🍃🍃

"Oh thank ancients! You're alive!"

Kasef was very sure this entire village was supposed to be filled with just Skywings like Reyna, Ibis and Cici, but he wasn't expecting a large and beefy looking elf with curved horns and fiery colored hair to emerge from the forge and scoop the two elves up into a hug. The two Skywings didn't really seem bothered by it, just a little pained from being squeezed tightly.

"Careful Zolar, don't break them before Ikaros sees them himself!" Cici calls out and gives a giggle before looking to Kasef. "He's always like this before and after any of us leave for long journeys, it's normal to get one of his strong hugs."

"I wasn't really expecting... whatever he is." Kasef admits. "He doesn't look like a Skywing, his ears are a bit slimmer, his skin is dark, hair is a different color, is there more than one race of elves?"

"Oh he's a Sunfire elf, and yes there actually are more than just Skywings living in Xadia! There's about four other races aside from our race and Zolar's race, maybe during your stay you'll get to meet some."

"You really must be careful with those hugs old friend." They hear Ibis laugh and turned to see him and Reyna be dropped to the floor. "Are you going to be that gentle with your future grandchildren?"

"IBIS!" Reyna exclaims in horror. "Damn it I didn't come all the way here just to hear you bring that up in front of a human!"

_ This family just keeps getting weirder and weirder.  _ Kasef thought as the large elf turned his attention towards him.

"Wait why do you two have a human? And what happened to him?" The elf, Zolar, asked as he stepped towards Kasef. "Goodness, are those scars? Whatever happened to you?"

"Uh...I don't think it's safe to talk about it here, and we should probably head home." Reyna says quickly. "We've already been getting lots of stares too on the way here, and the last thing we need is a mob of elves upset over one human."

"She's right, better head home." Ibis agrees with a nod. "Is Ikaros home yet?"

"No, he's been staying in the library a lot longer than usual." Cici answers and gives Kasef a small push. "Come on, we'll get you home and give you a nice warm meal and a good hot bath, you look a bit dirty."

The four elves led Kasef back to the ground area where the houses were until they came to a large one surrounded by various flowers with a flock of odd looking birds perched on the roof.

"Here we are, home sweet home!" Reyna announced as they reached the door and she opened it. "Come in, I'll warm up some tea while you get yourself settled on the couch."

"I'm already getting sick of tea." Kasef mutters under his breath as Reyna hurries off, earning a giggle from Cici.

"She made you her painkiller tea?" They ask and Kasef shrugs. "Don't worry, her teas that aren't used for herbal remedies won't kill you."

"I heard that!" They hear Reyna shout from another part of the house. "Oh good! My leaves are dry enough for tea! I think I'll use... dragonlace leaves today, perfectly sweet with a spoon of delicious Xadian honey!"

"So where should we put him for now?" Zolar asks Ibis. "We don't really have a guest room anymore, that ended up becoming your room."

"He can sleep on the couch." Cici suggests. "Or he can sleep on the floor of Ibis' room."

"I'm fine with anything." Kasef says as Cici led him to a large couch by one of the windows. "As long as it's not a bother."

"We'll figure something out when Ikaros comes home." Zolar said waving his hand dismissively. "How about you two explain the situation while Reyna makes tea."

It took Ibis a long time to explain everything, from the time he and Reyna had to stay at the Spire longer than they planned to Zubeia's orders to keep an eye on Kasef and keep him in their home to heal. Reyna did join in explaining how she believed Kasef's head and injury could have been what caused his memory loss. 

"...and that's why he's here." Ibis says as he finished explaining everything before taking a sip from his cup of tea.

"Well our daughter is a healer, so of course she's going to insist on making sure any patient of hers fully recovers." Zolar says with a chuckle and shake of his head before glancing over at the human. "So, what do we do now?"

"Get him cleaned up, obviously." Reyna says as she gets off her seat. "I'm going to draw him a warm bath so he can clean whatever I wasn't able to scrub off him, rebandage him because those bindings look awful and he'll need some clean clothes too."

"I don't think he's going to fit in anyone's clothes." Ibis points out. "He looks too...wide for any of my things or Ikaros things and too skinny for Zolar's clothes."

"I'm sure I can find something for him to wear until we can get a tailor to take his measurements and make him something new." Zolar says with a shrug. "He'll just need a belt with my pants and roll up the legs a bit. And he can wear one of my smaller shirts."

"I'm...fine with what I'm wearing." Kasef says quietly from the couch. "You don't have to get me anything-"

"Oh no no no, you are not walking around with those rags." Reyna interrupts. "Those are filthy, and look ready to fall apart at any second. You are absolutely going to need new clothes, I better call up Mags to come and measure you up.”

"Better do what she says." Cici chuckles from beside him. "And I think it's quite unsanitary to stay in dirty clothes too. Maybe if we wash them, we can take them to Mags to get fixed or have her make you something similar to what you wore." 

"I'll go draw up the bath water, stay here." Reyna says as she hurries out of the room.

"And I'll get started on dinner, we'll have some rice and veggies tonight!" Cici says as they get to their feet and hurry out to a different part of the house, leaving Kasef alone with the two older elves.

"So Kasef, what do you remember so far?" Zolar asks before taking a sip of tea from his cup. "Like any foggy memories of something?"

"Well...my name so far,or at least I think it's my name." The human admits, looking down at his own cup. "It was around a few nights ago on our way here that I heard it in my dreams, and it just...felt right? It's weird, but I just felt like this really was my name."

"Well that's good at least, you know what you assume is your own name. Maybe along the way during your stay here something might trigger some memories to resurface. Perhaps a smell, or sound.” Zolar suggests and Ibis nods in agreement.

“Since we’ll be on better terms with the human kingdoms, there is a chance I can be able to obtain some things for trade.” The mage says and looks to the smith. “Perhaps we can see about getting some foods from the human kingdoms to try and trigger something, you think you can sell or trade whatever you make in the forge?”

“I can try, not sure how humans will feel about elvish blades but I can make some fancy hair ornaments for the trades.”

“Bath time!” They hear Reyna shout before she enters the room with several towels. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up before Ikaros gets home and finds a stinky human sitting in the middle of his house."

"I don't stink!" Kasef protests as Reyna wrinkles her nose at him.

"Yes you do, ya big stinker. Of sweat and dirt, follow me please to the bathroom."

Kasef follows Reyna to a large room that had a tub that looked large enough for three grown elves to sit in that was filled almost to the brim with water and had several clay flasks surrounding it. The room was warm and steamy and smelled kind of sweet, probably from whatever was in those flasks that Reyna had probably poured into the water.

"Alright, strip and get in." She orders, gesturing to the tub as she sets the towels on the floor. "I'll be back in a few minutes to make sure you've scrubbed well. If you haven't, I'll scrub you myself, and believe me, I scrub hair hard."

"Can you get out then?" Kasef asks. "So I can at least bathe myself?

"Alright, but remember to scrub yourself  _ very _ good." Reyna says as she heads to the door. "And remember to remove the bandages on your wounds and be very careful when you wash there, dirt on wounds is not good. Can't have them get infected and you end up dying from it."

Once Reyna was out and shut the door behind her, Kasef started to undress for the bath. He winced at the sight of those pale scars that stood out on his arms and chest looking like cracks. The wound on his chest when he removed the bandages looked just as horrid but to his relief it wasn't bleeding. It still felt weird thinking how he was practically so close to death and bleeding out, but he was just too stubborn to give up just yet.

_ Makes me wonder how stubborn I was before losing my memory.  _ The human thinks to himself as he carefully unwrapped the bandages from his head that covered his eye. He gingerly touched the scar over his right eye and winced, wishing now he hadn't removed it. Reyna said she tried so hard to save his eye, but the arrowhead had damaged it too much so she was forced to remove it and sew the eye shut to avoid infection.

_ What even happened to me that left me like this? _ Kasef wonders as his hand strays to the large scar over his chest and looks at the one in his hand.  _ And who tried to kill me? _

So many questions that he couldn't even figure out the answers to, nor could Reyna and her family give him. So far all he knew was his name, he certainly was not supposed to be in this land, he was part of some sort of war and on the side that lost, he apparently stank of dark magic (not that he knew what it smelled like, but that dragon seemed to know what it smelled like to know), and so far only four elves didn't want to kill him. He just hoped this Ikaros Reyna and her other family members kept mentioning wasn't as hostile as the other elves of the village.

On their way to the forge and to the cottage a small handful elves had thrown something at him, cursing at him in a language he couldn't understand and some looked ready to stab him with something. Lucky for him Reyna, Ibis and Cici had stood around him like a wall and Zolar later brought up the rear. Just the sight of the towering Sunfire elf was enough to make several elves back away, along with Reyna glaring at them and gripping a knife she had pulled out of her bag earlier.

"Hey, have you bathed yet?" He heard Reyna yell from the other side of the door, pulling him from his thoughts. "Zolar has some clothes he thinks could fit you since Ibis and Ikaros are too skinny, and we can't have you walking around in rags or naked around the village."

"N-no!" Kasef responds immediately. "Just leave them outside the door!"

"I'll just throw them in, with my eyes squeezed shut because my father will have a fit if he finds his clothes on the floor outside."

Kasef immediately moves towards the tub as the door opens, Reyna's head sticking in with her eyes squeezed shut before she tossed in a pile of clothes and immediately shut the door. "No bathe yourself, and don't take too long! I'll have to rebandage you!"

🍃🍃🍃

"You think Ikaros won't mind Kasef living with us for a while?" Reyna asks her fathers as she sets the table for six. "I'd hate for him to be living in a hostile environment."

"I'm sure he won't mind, once you explain to him." Zolar assures her, handing her another plate to set down. "But if you mean if he will be upset for having a human guest, once he learns why he's here he'll be alright with it. And knowing him, he'd probably try to clear out the attic just to give him a room."

"Perhaps we should." Ibis chuckles as he placed a large pitcher down on the table. "I think he'll like this juice, he seemed to like those berries Reyna picked for him the other day."

"Dinner is ready!" Cici announced as they emerged from the kitchen with a large pot and sets it in the middle of the table next to the pitcher. "I'll go get the veggies, I made sure to add some tasty spices to it for flavor!"

"Stop, you're making me drool!" Reyna laughs as the other two adults laughed. "I'll go get Kasef, he should be done drying himself off and getting dressed.

"You know, I don't think I've seen our daughter get this attached to someone since Cici." Zolar says when Reyna rushed off. "And it's nice to see her act like this."

"You should have seen her back at the Spire, when I told her we'd have to send him back to be dealt with like all the other enemy soldiers she looked ready to bite my head off." Ibis chuckles. "She'd only known him for less than a day and she was ready to stab anyone who even looked at that boy wrong."

"She looked ready to stab the elves who looked ready to hurt him, I think it'd be best if we don't let him out of the house without one of us to accompany him." Zolar says with a nod. "We'll tell Reyna when she comes back with Kasef."

"Here's the veggies!" They hear Cici announce as they emerged with a covered pot. "Seasoned with the best seasonings I could get my hands on!"

"Perfect! Now where's your sister and our guest?"

"Right here!" Reyna emerges into the dining room pulling Kasef in behind her. "He was drowning in your shirt Zolar, and I had to find several belts to tie together to keep the pants from falling down."

The faded red shirt Kasef was wearing was indeed too big on him as he kept trying to cover up one shoulder and had the sleeves rolled up several times. Reyna looked like she was trying so hard not to laugh while the poor human just looked very uncomfortable and slightly annoyed as he was trying to keep his new temporary clothes from slipping.

"Okay that's actually not too bad." Cici comments, gesturing to Kasef's new clothes. "But we might need to fix the shirt, he's drowning in it."

"Not Zolar's fault he's so beefy." Reyna laughs. "I still can't get over that every Sunfire elf we've met is scrawny or slightly muscled, and our father is the complete opposite."

"Well he does work in a forge so it's expected." Cici points out with a small giggle. "Kasef could just wear a vest until we get him a better shirt and pants tailored for him."

"You sure he doesn't have anything smaller as a shirt?" Kasef asks. "I...I don't think I'm going to feel comfortable walking around with just a vest."

"Unfortunately no." Zolar laughs. "I'm sorry, but tomorrow morning we'll take you to Mags and get you fitted for some new clothes."

"This reminds me of the time Reyna and Cici decided to raid your closet when they were little because they were cold." Ibis chuckles. "They stole two of your shirts so they could stay warm because they didn't want to get a blanket."

"First off, we were both too short to get the blankets from inside the closet." Reyna scoffs. "And please don't bring that up, we were six."

"You were ten."

"Family! I'm home!" A new voice called out.

"We're in the dining room love!" Zolar calls out as Reyna and Cici's faces lit up excitedly. "And we have a guest!"

"If by guest you mean Reyna and Ibis, I would very much like to see them! And I'm so glad they're home too!" Ikaros emerged into the dining room with a tired smile and both Cici and Reyna tackled him in a hug. "Oh goodness! You two do know you're too big to keep tackling me like that!"

"We know!" Cici laughs. "But we still love doing it!"

Ikaros laughs. "I am very well aware about that." His eyes then land on Kasef and his happy expression immediately drops. "Zolar, am I hallucinating seeing a human standing in here wearing your clothes?"

Both Ibis and Zolar turn to Kasef, who gives them a helpless shrug and points to Reyna.

"Uh…Ikaros this is Kasef. Kasef, this is our father and Zolar's husband Ikaros." Reyna says, releasing her father and hurried over to the human. "And Ikaros, you might want to sit down for this."


	9. 🌹 9 🌹

Loud bird screeching was the first thing to assault Kasef's ears in the morning, followed by the yells of one of the three father's yelling for Reyna to shut her bird up. He opened his eyes to find a large black bird he had never seen before perched on the backrest of the couch he had been sleeping on, loudly screeching and cawing like there was no tomorrow. He was now very tempted to smack it just to shut it up, but thankfully Reyna emerges into the living room with a small bag in her hand.

"Hey don't be rude to our guest!" She scolds as the bird goes silent and hops off the couch to fly into her shoulder. "Birdie, that's not very nice, let Kasef get his sleep."

"Thank you." The human mutters in relief. "I think my ears are going to be ringing for the next ten minutes."

"I don't know what is the matter with him, but he hardly ever does this sort of thing." Reyna assures him as she pulls what looks like a small orange nut from her bag and hands it to the bird, who eagerly plucks it from her hand with one foot and begins to nibble on it. "He mostly screams at Ikaros for no reason, I'm still trying to figure out why."

Kasef gives a muffled response that was lost into his pillow, earning a small laugh from Reyna before she returns the bird to a perch hanging near the couch.

"I'll go get the medical kit, I need to check on your wounds."

"M'kay."

She returns a few minutes later with a large box and seats herself on the floor to take Kasef's bandaged hand and examines the wound carefully.

"Alright, so far your wound seems to be healing well. Can you flex your hand for me?”

Kasef does as he’s told, flinching a bit at the pain. “It hurts a bit.” He admits quietly.

"It'll go away after a while, and it's normal to still feel pain." Reyna assures him as she grabs a roll of bandages from the box. "If it's still hurting, I'll make you some tea to soothe the pain, just let me know. And how is your eye feeling right now? And your head?"

"It hurts sometimes, the eye I mean. And as for my head, it's not hurting at all."

"Well that's good at least, and it's good to see you're feeling a bit better."

"And no odd dreams tonight either, just some blissfully quiet dreams."

This earns him a smile from Reyna before she reaches up and ruffles the front of his hair.

"I just noticed how cute you look with that bed head and sleepy smile on your face." She says with a small laugh before shutting the medical kit and getting up. "I'll go put this away and get us something to eat before we head out, you're getting some new clothes today."

_ Did she really call me "cute" just now?  _ Kasef wonders as Reyna hurries out back in the direction of her room.  _ Wait why is my face feeling warm over hearing that from her? _

He hears Birdie squawking at him from above and staring at him with those beady eyes. Creepy bird...

"Good morning!" Kasef hears Cici call and sits up in time to see them stroll into the living room already dressed and with a smile on their face before they broke into a fit of giggles.

"What now?" Kasef asks and they point at him.

"You look like a baby crow with your bed head sticking up like that." They giggled. "It looks so cute, has Reyna seen it yet?"

"Yes and she said I looked cute with it."

"Did she now?"

"Yes?" What was with that little secretive smile on their face? Before he could even ask, Reyna returns fully dressed and running a brush through her hair while humming to herself.

"Cici do we have any porridge left to cook? And some fresh fruit to add to it?" She asks before heading to the couch and hands Kasef the brush. "Fix your hair." 

"Yes we do, also don't tell him that after you said his bed head looked cute." Cici says as Kasef sits up from the couch.

"Mags does not like tangled hair, she will attack it with her own brushes if he doesn't fix it here at home." Reyna points out before taking the brush from Kasef. "And it's still going to look messy even if we brush it, but at least it won't be tangled."

"I'll do it myself." Kasef insists as he takes the brush back. "You just go do what you need to do."

Reyna looks to Cici, who just shrugs before nodding. "Alright, just clean the hairs out when you are done. Your hair may have been washed yesterday, but it's still nasty to leave in a brush."

The moment the two headed into the kitchen, Kasef proceeded to carefully run the brush through his hair. Last night Reyna had tried to comb and brush out all the tangles from his hair while her family had been preparing for dinner after vigorously scrubbing it clean of dirt, and while painful he was glad it at least had gotten combed out. At least today he didn't have to worry about too many tangles as yesterday, and he took care to try and brush back his bangs that Reyna wouldn't stop laughing over how similar they looked to a feathered plumage of some bird he never heard of, until it was flattened well. Once he was done, he headed towards the kitchen to find Reyna and Cici happily chatting and pouring things into a pot that was smelling delicious. The two elves caught sight of him and immediately went quiet.

"Sorry, was I not supposed to be in here?" He asked and Cici blinked in surprise.

"Oh no, it's fine. We're just taken a bit by surprise, you look a lot different with your bangs brushed back.” Reyna says with a small laugh.

“I could...fix that if it’s bad looking.” Kasef suggests.

“Oh no, you look fine!” Cici assures him quickly. “Just go sit down, we’re almost done making breakfast. Hope you like some Xadian strawberries in porridge.”

“I have no clue what those taste like but I’m sure they’re delicious.”

After a few minutes of waiting at the table the two elves emerged from the kitchen with Reyna carrying three steaming wooden bowls and Cici holding a small bowl filled to the top with some strange purple looking fruits and some spoons before they set them out on the table and placed them down.

“Okay just to be clear, you don’t hate fruits, right?” Reyna asks as she and Cici seat themselves on either side of Kasef with their bowls. “Because last night you hardly ate anything except rice and looked ready to puke when you put a vegetable in your mouth.”

Kasef cringes at the memory, recalling too well the hurt look on Cici’s face when he spat out the weird blue vegetable and flew into a coughing fit before chugging down his entire cup of juice. He apologized profusely afterwards, very confused to why he had such a reaction to eating something he never tasted before.

“I can assure you, I don’t think I do.” He says with a shake of his head. “I still don’t get why I spat it out, the second I put it in my mouth I had the urge to puke, and I’m sure Cici did not cook it badly.”

“Well maybe I over seasoned it?” The smaller elf suggests. “Sometimes I get carried away with seasoning stuff, or sometimes it’s Reyna who gets carried away with seasoning things and it either comes out too sweet or too spicy.”

“Oh come on! I spilled a cup of spices one time into the soup that ended up so spicy even Zolar couldn’t stomach it and you all can’t trust me in the kitchen!” Reyna says and pouts. “It was an accident I swear, plus that soup tasted so bland I was surprised we were even able to taste the spice at all!”

“Tell that to Ikaros.” Cici giggles before pushing the bowl of fruit to the human. “Here, try one. If you don’t like the taste you don’t have to mix it into the porridge."

Kasef picks one out of the bowl and bit into it. His mouth was instantly filled with an unusually sweet flavor, much like the berry juice Ibis had served them last night. Now this was certainly not something he was going to cough up.

“You really should see the cute face you’re making.” Reyna laughs and Kasef looks at her in confusion. “You looked like one of the birds we have when she gets scratched in her favorite spot.”

“He is making the same face as Peach.” Cici says nodding in agreement. “And that’s the face she makes when she eats her favorite foods too.”

“What is with you two and comparing me to a bird?” The human asks and the two elves laugh. “I’m serious! Is it a Skywing thing or something?”

“Well would you want me to compare you to a baby wolf bat eating fruit for the first time when you started eating?” Reyna teases and Kasef makes a pout. “Oh stop pouting and eat your breakfast, we have to meet with Mags later today.”

🍃🍃🍃

“Now Mags will have no qualms about tailoring clothing for humans, she's actually quite open about her dislike for the deeply rooted hate some elves have for them." Reyna says as she and Cici led Kasef towards a large hut where the village tailor apparently lived. "Says a lot of us are probably descended from a few humans back when Xadia used to be one land and when we were at peace."

"I think she mentioned once that her great-grandmother was a human." Cici adds. "We sent a message to her earlier this morning and she was more than eager to do it. Now please be polite and keep any rude comments in your head."

“What’s she even like anyways?” Kasef asks as he tried adjusting the collar of Zolar’s shirt. “I mean she sounds a lot nicer than some of the other elves in your village, considering what you said about her liking humans.”

Earlier on their way over to the tailor Kasef was met with a small group of annoyed and upset elves who didn’t seem too happy that he was still in the village, one even chucked what he assumed was some rotten or overly ripe fruit that Reyna managed to grab before fling it back at whoever threw it and started to yell at them for being disrespectful. And she probably would have gotten into a fight if he and Cici hadn’t grabbed her to drag her away.

“Ask her for her opinions on humans, she’ll say they’re an interesting race and a curious but funny bunch.” Cici says as they reached the door and knocked on it. “Oh Mags! We’re here!”

“Come on, come in little birds!” A muffled voice from the other side called. “It’s been too long since either of you visited your grandmother!”

“Grandmother?” Kasef asks as Cici opened the door for them to step inside.

“She’s not our grandmother, but she acts like one to us.” Reyna explains as they entered and shut the door behind them. “Everyone who doesn’t think she’s the crazy village lady sees her as a grandmother figure of sorts. And she’s quite harmless as well.”

The room was covered from wall to floor with piles of colorful fabrics, in a corner there were some chairs also covered in fabrics, what looks like a patchwork quilt covering one of the walls and an empty stool stood in the middle, probably for whoever was going to be fitted. Kasef really couldn’t see anyone else was in the room, at least until the quilt was moved and a female elf emerged from behind it. She had a sort of pale purple - grey skin and long flowing silver hair with a pair of small purple horns sticking out from near the front of her head and several black markings on her face and around her neck and chest. The elf gave them a warm smile and spread her arms out.

"It's been too long since either of you have visited me!" The elf said as she move forward to hug Reyna and Cici. "Really, you two ought to visit your poor and lonely grandmother more often!"

"Hello Mags." Reyna laughs as they were released from the hug. "How have you been? Business good as usual?"

"As usual, as usual." The elf, Mags, says beaming proudly before frowning. "Really Reyna, what have I told you about wearing that red shirt, it clashes horribly with your skin and eyes!"

"Criticizing me this early into the visit, huh?" Reyna mutters as the elderly elf tutted. "Oh come on my shirt is fine and-"

"Mags, we came to have you fit Kasef for new clothes, not Reyna." Cici says, taking Kasef's hand and tugged him forward. "We can't have him walking around in Zolar's clothes."

Mags' eyes widened in surprise "Oh! That's the human Ibis mentioned in his letter!"

"He needs some new shirts and pants, preferably something for the warmer season that's coming." Reyna states as the elder elf walks right up to Kasef and proceeds to poke his arms and lift them to examine him.

“Such a skinny little thing, no wonder he’s drowning in your father’s clothes!” She tutted. “Why didn’t Ibis or Ikaros lend him something? They’re smaller than Zolar!”

“Because he’s too tall, and the shirt makes him look skinny.” Reyna laughs. “It took me several belts to keep the pants on his hips.”

"Unfortunately." Kasef agrees, lifting his shirt up to reveal the multiple belts holding his pants up. "If you can, maybe help?"

"Dearie, I can sew and resize anything! Hand me an old dress and I'll resize and design it to be a new frock for a toddler!" Mags' exclaims as she stepped away from him. "Hmm...take your shift off."

"What?!"

"I'm not looking!" Cici squeaked, quickly turning towards the walls. "You too Reyna!"

"I've already seen him shirtless, I cleaned him up when I first found him." Reyna scoffs and rolled her eyes. "You know I'm used to this sort of thing, I'm a healer."

"And you'll always have to be used to it." Mags agrees with a chuckle and turns to Kasef. "Unless you'd feel a bit more comfortable with her  _ not _ looking."

"I...I would prefer anyone not looking." Kasef admits quietly. "Please?"

"Hey why don't we leave and we'll come back later?" Reyna suggests, placing a hand over Cici's eyes and pushed them to the doors. "We'll be back in...maybe three hours?"

"Plenty of time to get him fitted, and maybe by the time you two come back I'll have two nice shirts and a pair of pants fitted for him to take home." Mags says with a nod and points to the door. "Now as much as I love it when you two visit me, I'd prefer if you leave me in peace and let me do my work."

"We'll see you two then in a few hours." Reyna says as she opens the door and nudged Cici out. "And be nice, he's a sensitive soul."

"You sure we should leave him alone with Mags?" Cici asks once their sister shut the door behind her. "Ibis told us never to leave him alone."

"He'll be fine, Mags won't even hurt him." Reyna assures them. "In the meantime we should probably see the cobbler about getting him fitted for some boots, can't have him tripping in Zolar's boots forever. And we should make sure it's one who at least is tolerable towards humans."

🍃🍃🍃

"I haven't made clothes for a human in... centuries!" Mags laughs as Reyna and Cici enter the workshop. "Last one was for a man I was planning to marry before the elves threw him and the other humans out of Xadia. Such a shame I never saw him again, he was such a kind and good-natured fellow with a smile as warm as the sun in the spring. We could have had a lovely set of children, little tailors sewing their own clothes like their mother and father." 

“I take it that you enjoyed making him clothes?" Reyna asks and the elf laughed.

"Absolutely! Oh I hadn't had this much fun since my youth with my dear Bernard, though this human you brought isn't quite as handsome as my fiance and kept asking to have his shirt on when I finished measuring."

"I think he's a bit self-conscious over the scars, he was even uncomfortable over wearing just a vest in place of Zolar's big shirt." Cici points out as they head to one of the chairs and sat themselves down. "So, where is Kasef?"

"In the dressing room, waiting for me to call him out so you can see what I had made for him." Mags turns to the quilt hanging on the wall. "You can come out now, don't be shy."

"Are you sure?" They hear Kasef ask.

"Oh come on, I'm sure you don't look as bad as you think." Cici assures him. "What did she at least put you in?"

"A...I think it's a sleeveless tunic?"

"Then it can't be as bad as you think, at least step out so we can see for ourselves." Reyna says. "I promise we won't laugh if it looks weird on you."

"Why do I feel like you are."

"Oh for ancients sake, just come out!"

A few moments passed before Kasef finally emerged from behind the quilt, now sporting a dark green sleeveless tunic and a pair of dark brown pants that went past his knees. He looks to the elves a bit unsure and held his hands up.

"So...is it bad?" He asks and Cici shakes their head.

"You look fine, that's actually a lot better than Zolar's shirt hanging off you and the multiple belts holding your pants up, don't you agree Reyna?"

"Ah...yes?" The elf says and looks away. "It's better than what I expected."

"Excellent! Now I'll just have to make him a few more with the measurements I wrote down." Mags says with a smile. "See what I told you boy? These two like it, you look good enough to make Reyna even blush!"

"Mags!" Reyna helps, turning to the elder in horror, her cheeks now blooming pink.

“And you little missie." Mags walks over to one of the cloth piles and plucks something off of it before walking back to Reyna and shoves something into her arms and points to the quilt. "Go put that on, it'll look much better than that top of yours."

"Oh my gods Mags, I don't need any new shirts!" Reyna groans but the elderly elf gave her a stern look. "Okay fine! But only because you won't let us leave until I put it on."

"Hey where did your bandages go?" Cici asks Kasef. "The one covering your eye."

"Oh...Mags had me remove it." Kasef admits, gesturing to the dressing room. "It's somewhere in the old clothes I had to discard."

"You can get it back when Reyna comes out, though your eye seems to be doing fine that you don't need bandages to cover it." Mags says waving her hand dismissively. "I have a friend who's son makes shoes you can go to, he doesn't dislike humans so he won't turn you three away if you ask him to make Kasef some boots to fit him."

"There, happy now?" The three turned to see Reyna emerge from behind the quit with a sour expression and now wearing the shirt Mags had given her. "Can I take this off? It feels too fancy for my taste."

"It doesn't look that fancy." Cici points out. "But the blue does look nice on you."

"Blue isn't really my color, maybe a dark grey or a dark blue but not this pale shade of blue that almost looks like a shade darker than my skin." Reyna says with a scoff. "And this cloth here that is supposed to look like it's off the shoulders really doesn't seem to be a good idea because it might rip if I did the wing spell."

"I suppose I could fix that and change the cloth color." Mags agrees. "But the two straps holding it up should stay at least. Take it off, I'll see if I can fix it." 

"You know we only came here to get Kasef clothes, right?" Reyna says as she walks back to the dressing room.

"Kasef, you okay?" Cici asks, turning to the human. "You look flustered, you're not getting sick are you?"

"I'm fine! I'm fine!" Kasef assures them. "I'm just...just feeling a bit warm right now."

"It's not that warm in here, but I probably should open a window." Mags says as Reyna reemerges wearing the shirt she was previously wearing and holding the clothes Kasef had been wearing before and the shit she had been given. "You know I could alter the shirt Zolar lent your human companion, if he doesn't mind missing at least one shirt but I don't think I could do anything about the pants."

"We'll just ask him, if he says Kasef could keep them then we'll bring them back to be fixed another day." Reyna says as she hands Kasef his clothes and hands Mags the shirt. "Really Mags, you don't have to go through the trouble of making me anything."

"No I insist, and it's no trouble for me." Mags says as she takes the shirt back. "Come back by the end of the week, this shirt will be fixed by then so maybe you could wear it for a special occasion or that upcoming summer gathering of the clans."

"Oh I almost forgot that was coming!" Cici gasps. "Wait, what are we going to do with Kasef by then?"

"He won't be going because I'll be staying at home with him." Reyna responds. "Unless the clans plan on coming here to our village for the gathering instead of one of the more bigger villages, I'll stay here with him." 

"You sure about that? This gathering sounds like an important Skywing thing." Kasef says and Reyna shakes her head.

"It's not. Now, let's go and get you some boots before your feet get messed up."


	10. 🌹 10 🌹

[Neolandia]

It's been almost a week since Ahling had managed to recover enough from his injuries to awaken, and the first thing that came to mind was wondering what had happened to his children. He vaguely remembered hearing his daughters scream in terror as they fled the room to escape the assassin, their older brother throwing himself at the shadowy elf before it suddenly disappeared and then reappeared to stab him right in the chest, and Kasef's screams were the last thing he heard before he blacked out. Thankfully the girls were at his side when he awoke, crying and trying not to hug him too tightly, before they broke the grave news to him about their older brother when he asked where he was.

According to his oldest daughter, Talora, shortly in the morning after the attempted assassination Kasef had left with half of their kingdom's army to Katolis for aid in waging a war on Xadia along with two other kingdoms, and many had came back either dead or disfigured from a dark spell that had been casted on them by Viren to make them stronger. There had been a war, four kingdoms marched all the way to Xadia to kill the queen of the dragons, only to be stopped by an army of dragons, elves and humans. But what broke the king's heart after hearing that statement, before he could even ask where his son was, one of the soldiers who had returned from the war who could still talk normally handed him Kasef's crown. Just the sight of the dented and misshapen metal was enough to tell the old king what had befallen his oldest child, causing him and his daughters to break down crying.

Little Nijah, the youngest of the three children wouldn’t stop carrying that broken crown around in her little hands, looking so lost and upset by the death of her older brother that she hadn’t spoken a word to anyone since they had been told the news. Talora on the other hand had shut herself away in the stables with the horses, busying herself in caring for her brother’s own horse that was brought back from the war and refusing to even speak to anyone who wasn’t the horse or Nijah when she’d wander into the stables to stay with her. It broke Ahling’s heart to see his daughters looking so heartbroken over the death of their brother, who they adored and looked up to.

 _But if he is really dead, why haven’t they brought back a body yet?_ The king wondered to himself. _The Katolian soldiers had brought back some of the bodies of our dead, and king Ezran swore in his recent letter that they could find no trace of Kasef’s body anywhere near the Spire. It was as if it disappeared into thin air._

He didn’t want to raise his hopes too much, so many had witnessed his son getting shot by three of queen Aanya’s arrows and plummet off the side of a ledge that overlooked the battle field, yet no one could even find the body at all. But if there was a chance that his son was still alive, all he could do was hope and pray that he was alright and would find his way home.

  
  


[Skywing Elf Village]

"...so here's some books to study from that Ikaros picked out, plenty of paper and some pencils pencils so you can take notes while you read or if you want to use it to draw instead, I'll come back in a few hours to check on you." Reyna says as she placed several heavy books on the table in front of Kasef and gestured to the paper and pencils. "So hopefully you won't get too bored while I’m working.”

“I don’t think I’ll get too bored when reading these.” Kasef said picking up one of the books from the pile. “What do you even do for a living anyways?”

“I work in the medical hut that’s in the upper area of the village, I help gather herbs, make medicines and even heal injured elves.” Reyna responds, gesturing to the white armband she wore on her left arm with a strange grey and green symbol. “It’s pretty obvious that I’m a healer, since I was the one to patch you up and brought you here to heal better.”

"Please tell me you do more than shove foul tasting tea into your patients mouths."

Reyna gave him an annoyed look before adjusting her bag over her shoulder and walking to the front door.

"So was I right?" Kasef asks as she steps out and shuts the door behind her. "Yeah I'm probably right. Well now, time to get reading all of this."

At least half of the books that were left for him were written in a language he couldn't understand, which led Kasef to wonder if Reyna even looked through the books to make sure he could  _ actually _ read them or she just picked whichever ones she believed would help him, forgetting he couldn't even read what looked like an elf language. But the other books that he could read didn't really seem to make any sense either. Who even was Aalzar the Herder, or Legona the Quiet?

"This is absolutely tiring." Kasef groans as he tossed the book back onto the table, leaned back against the couch and squeezed his eye shut. So far nothing he had been trying to read was even useful at all, he hardly had any notes that he had attempted to jot down from what he read, and he was already starting to feel a headache coming on.

"I see you've been hard at work." Kasef opened his eye and look up to see Ibis standing over him with a cup.

"Hardly." He responds, sitting up as Ibis hands him the cup. "I really don't understand anything in these books, and the ones I can read are filled with...I don't even know what to call it."

"Oh she lent you a copy of  _ The Moon Seer _ , this was a favorite of hers and Cici as a child." Ibis says as he picks one of the books off the table. "It's an old copy, this one was apparently very popular when the humans used to live in Xadia. I think this one was written by a half elf, apparently in memory of his human mother."

"I wonder if in the human kingdoms they have a copy of that." Kasef murmurs before carefully taking a sip of the hot drink. This tasted like tea, definitely not something Reyna made.

"From what I've heard, a lot of books written by elves back then never made it to the shelves of the human kingdoms. A shame though, Mags told me once that there were many wonderful books by elves that humans enjoyed when we used to trade with them."

"Well Reyna mentioned the humans, elves, and dragons are making plans to open trade routes to Xadia,and that both our kind can trade with each other."

"Oh yes, Ikaros is excited to see what kinds of books we can get from the humans to add to the library; Reyna hopes to get some specific herbs grown only in the human kingdoms for remedies that can be mixed with our plants that she's read about; Cici hopes this means they and other mail carriers can deliver things to the human now without having to worry about getting shot at, Zolar hopes to sell whatever he's been working on in his forge and trading specific metals with other human smiths."

"And what about you?" Kasef asks as the mage seats himself on the couch next to him. "Anything you're hoping to get from this trading?"

"Books, of course, but I'm also hoping this means I can travel to the Katolian kingdom to give the young prince more lessons on sky magic." Ibis responds with a chuckle. "His determination to learn more reminds me of when Reyna was little, always demanding and begging for me to teach her a new spell or to help her practice one she'd been reading about. But enough about me, you've been here for nearly a week, how are you feeling now? Any new memories you've seen in your sleep?"

Kasef shrugs. "The other night I dreamt of a desert, I could  _ actually _ feel the blazing heat of the sun but it didn't seem to bother me at all. And the other night in my sleep I kept hearing what sounded like two little girls calling out to me in fear, then I smelled blood and heard a loud scream before I woke up in cold sweat."

"Mmm, Reyna mentioned that to me the other day. Said you started to down crying before she tried comforting you and helping you get back to sleep." Ibis said with a nod. "She's concerned you might have had a traumatic moment before all this happened, and that it may have been recent before your amnesia."

Kasef nods quietly. He remembered Reyna practically tripping down the stairs to rush over him that night as he tried to calm himself down after waking up from that nightmare and trying very hard not to cry. He couldn't recognize that scream, but it didn't sound like it belonged to either of the two girls he heard calling out to him. One of them did sound like the person he heard in his dreams calling out for him on the night he discovered what he hoped was his real name, and they sounded quite young too so they must be children. Did this mean he had sisters?

"Well, I'm sure this means you're recovering slowly, maybe in the next week or month you'll remember something else." Ibis says as he gets up. "I'll leave you to your studying."

"Actually, could you help me with this?" Kasef quickly asks before the mage could leave. "I'm having some trouble understanding this language and I don't think there's a book in the pile that can help translate it to one I can understand."

Ibis chuckles. "Well all you had to do was ask, and of course I'll help you in translating this."

For the next few hours the two were bent over the books and papers, Ibis translating while Kasef jotted down notes on his papers. So far from what Ibis' had been reading he had learned that humans that used to live in Xadia nearly went extinct due to being unable to protect themselves and fighting amongst each other for food and anything they needed to survive, unicorns gave them items called primal stones to help them despite the elves warning them not to. And when humans discovered dark magic, it was a daughter of an elf ruler who suggested they place the humans to the east side of the continent to live, which was allowed by an archdragon queen. And since they had been pushed out, the humans split into five groups and lived in five different kingdoms: Katolis, Duren, Del Bar, Evenere, and Neolandia.

"So which of these kingdoms do you think I came from?" Kasef asks Ibis, pointing to the map of the human territory. "The ones that attacked the Spire have to be where I came from."

"From what I remember, Katolis, Del Bar, Evenere, and Neolandia were the four human kingdoms that were turned into fire monsters and attacked the Spire, and there was a small force of Katolian soldiers who broke away before the armies marched there who were aided by the Duren army, so you may have came from one of these four." The mage responds, pointing to four of the kingdoms. "You mentioned seeing a desert in your dreams, was the sand black or yellow?"

"It was yellow, isn't that the normal color of sand?"

"In Xadia we have a desert made of black sand, so you could have been seeing the desert terrain of Neolandia, maybe that was your home. Or you have been to Neolandia enough to have that particular memory in the back of your brain but you lived somewhere else. When I'm summoned to Katolis I'll be asking around if anyone of your description and name was missing towards the end of the war."

"It's a possibility that I came from Neolandia, but you could be right that it might not even be my home." Kasef says with a nod. "At least it's a start, maybe Reyna's human friends have connections in that place to confirm if I come from there or not."

"I'm home!" They hear the door swing open, followed by some footsteps before Reyna emerges into the room with a small grey and yellow bird perched on her shoulder. "Fen doesn't want Peach anymore, so I decided to being her home."

"He didn't want Peach? I thought he actually liked her." Ibis says in surprise. "Why did he change his mind?"

"I don't even know, but hey, we get to keep her here now and get to see her everyday instead of at the infirmary." Reyna responds and shrugs before walking over to them. "So, how's your studying been going? I see you've already filled three sheets of paper out with chicken scratch."

"Half of the books you gave me were in elvish what whatever I could read was just fairy tales that really didn't seem to help." Kasef says with a frown and holds up one of the books.

"The fairy tales were something to read if you wanted a break from reading and translating the history books, didn't I put a dictionary in your pile?"

"There was no dictionary!"

The little bird on Reyna's shoulder gave a chirp and flutters down onto the stack of opened books in front of Kasef, watching him intently with it's dark beady eyes.

"What is that?" Kasef asks as the bird kept staring at him intently.

"Oh that's Peach, I'm not even sure what kind of bird she is, but she's definitely not Xadian." Reyna says as the little grey and yellow bird chirps at Kasef and hops off the pile of books to get closer. "Aw, I think she likes you!"

"Hello there." Kasef says softly, earning another soft chirp from the bird as he held his hand out. Reyna grins before reaching into her bag and grabbed his extended hand. "Wait what are you-"

"Peach really likes these, if you give her some she'll consider you a friend." Reyna says as she pressed something into his hand and released it. Kasef open his hand to find several small pink nuts before lowering his hand back to the table where Peach was.

The little bird gave another chirp before hopping onto his opened hand, grabbed one of the nuts with her beak and proceeded to eat it. Kasef smiles as he watches her carefully break the pink outer shell and eat the meat inside of it before tossing the empty remains of the nut onto the table and grabbing another nut to repeat the process.

"Such a shame Fen didn't want to keep her, everyone thought her presence in the infirmary made the whole place seem a little more cheerful." Ibis says as he sweeps the broken nut shells into his hand to clear them off the books. "Best keep these clean, otherwise Ikaros will have our heads."

"Well his loss, I'm always having to look after her when I go and she really didn't seem to like him so much." Reyna says with a shrug. "His loss, our win I suppose. Guess Kasef will get to have some company while we're away."

"I suppose I do now." Kasef laughs as Peach jumps off his hand to flap onto his shoulder to continue eating her snack, stopping to look at the human and give an occasional happy sounding whistling noise before going back to eating.

"I've actually never seen her warm up so quickly to anyone like that, normally she'd just snag a nut from one's hand and fly off to another part of the room to eat it. It usually takes a few attempts before she decides you're friendly enough to climb on." Reyna says with a chuckle. "The only one I'd seen her warm up to so quickly after meeting them the first time was Cici, but then again they're practically a bird magnet so it's no surprise."

"Maybe I have a way with birds like some Skywing elves." Kasef suggests as Peach drops her empty nut shell to sit contently on his shoulder. "And who knows, maybe I used to have a ton of pet birds before this happened to me and they're waiting for me to come home."

"Or maybe you worked with them, I've heard the human kingdoms use a special mail delivery system that's like something we use." Ibis suggests. "Some kingdoms use different kinds of birds to deliver letters more quickly and efficiently than just a simple rider on horseback. Most Skywings in the village who have wings like Cici have this sort of job, delivering packages and letters to all of Xadia. Dangerous job at times, but as long as you know how to protect yourself or have someone aiding you to protect you, you're fine."

"Guess I'll have to wait for it to come back to me later." Kasef shrugs and turns to Peach. "What do you think Peach? If I wasn't a caretaker of birds should I become one in the future?"

Peach gave a little whistling noise and bobbed her head, earning a laugh from the two elves and the human.


	11. 🌹 11 🌹

"You know what, I'm taking you out."

Kasef looks up from his book to find Reyna standing in front of him with a staff in hand and dressed in a baggy sleeveless tunic with leather strips wrapped around her hands and wrists, and her hair pulled back into a short ponytail.

"As in...a date?" Kasef asks before lowering his head to look back down at his book. “I’m a bit busy.”

"No dumb dumb, I meant out of the house, you need fresh air and sunshine. And I need a sparring partner."

"For what?"

"An acquaintance of my dads is off on maternity leave and she needs someone to teach her self defense class consisting of fifteen nose pickers and ankle biters." Reyna leans across the small table to pluck the book out of Kasef's hands before slipping a scrap of paper into it. "Ibis has zero skills in non-magical combat training, Ikaros is busy as usual in the library, Cici is off on a delivery to the human kingdoms, and Zolar scares most of the children despite being very friendly towards them."

"You sure I'm not going to scare them with all...this?" Kasef gestures to the scars on his arms and face. "I'm quite sure I'm going to make at least three children cry in fear at the sight of my missing eye if they ask to see what's under the bandages."

"We've all seen worse than that, these kids would probably be more curious than frightened about you.”

“Can I have my book back?”

“No, you can read it later when we get back.”

Kasef gives a pout before getting up from the couch and following Reyna out the door. So far today it seemed like a lot of the village weren't so hateful today, one or two elves had waved to him, he only got one glare from some male elf, and the rest didn't seem bothered to see him walking through the place. Seemed like many were starting to get used to him, and he hoped it’d stay that way during his stay in the village.

“So...why do the elves think it’s a good idea to teach children how to fight at such a young age?” Kasef as Reyna as they approach a platform that was empty, save for a group of elves.

“The younger they are, the better chance they have of improving themselves and seeing what their skills could be.” She responds with a shrug. “When I was little we didn’t start training children until they were well over thirteen. Zolar was the one to teach me how to fight, he used to be a teacher back in Lux Aurea and he actually used to train some of the best warriors they have - including the “Golden Knight” herself.”

“I have no idea who that is, but she sounds terrifying.”

“She’s not that scary, until you piss her off or punch her in the face.”

“Wait, how do you know that?”

“Reyna! There you are, I thought you quit at the last second!” An elf from the group called, a young female Skywing who looked like she was in her teens.

“Don’t you have some birds to clean up after, Leena?” Reyna asks as she approaches the group and playfully ruffles the elf’s hair. “Get back to your job, I’ll handle little Aias for now and make sure he doesn’t knock someone over the side.”

“Eww, why did you have to bring that?” An older male Skywing asks, giving Kasef a look of disgust. “I now don’t feel comfortable leaving my son here if that is going to be here.”

“Vulas, if you have something to say to my patient, say it to my damn face.” Reyna snaps as Kasef quickly puts a hand on her shoulder, ready to hold her back if she got a bit physical. “You are lucky my patience hasn’t worn thin yet and that I won’t have you disrespecting him in front of all these children. We are at peace with the humans now, this one has every right to wander and walk about our village as we do without having elves like you harass him.”

“Humans are nothing but vermin, why Zubeia even let you keep this one in our village is beyond me, but I’m not letting my son be around one while I still walk and breath!” The elf sneers before grabbing the hand of a young silver haired elf with wings and stormed off the platform.

“Anyone else has a problem with me keeping a human here, you can leave, but he stays.” Reyna states, turning to the adults. “Otherwise, leave your children here so I can continue Bree’s class with no interruptions.”

Some of the adults looked at each other uncomfortably before they nod and walk off, leaving them with a handful of young elf children. Some Kasef had noticed had wings much like Cici’s but varied between black, dark brown and even white, while others didn’t have them at all. And they were all kind of staring at him, which was rather a bit uncomfortable especially since they had decided to gather around him.

“Reyna? A little help?” He calls out nervously. “I feel like I’m being watched by vultures.”

“Eh, get used to it.” Reyna says with a shrug as she walks over to a pile of what looked like large sticks, probably staffs.

“Why are you missing an eye?” One child, a little female elf with pale hair and a pair of broken horns asks and points at his face.

“Uh...I don’t know.” Kasef admits with a nervous laugh.

“Why do you have so many scars?” Another elf, this one a boy with a pair of grey wings, asks poking his cheek. “They look like cracks on a mirror.”

"Are you all doing oogling at him?" Reyna asks impatiently as she returns with an armload of child sized staffs. "Because your lessons start now."

"Why are his ears so funny?" One child asks, pointing to Kasef's ears.

"Humans were unfortunately born with round ears." Reyna responds dismissively before handing one of the children a wooden stick slightly taller than them. "Now pay attention, unlike Bree I don't like having to repeat myself."

Kasef gave a sigh of relief as their attention was on Reyna now, all sixteen children gathered around her as she was demonstrating the use of a staff. Seeing her surrounded by the children and demonstrating how to fight reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t remember who. Maybe someone he knew before his memory loss, like maybe a teacher who also taught fighting.

“-sef! Kasef!” He blinked in surprise and looks back over to Reyna to find her with two large staffs in hand. “Welcome back to reality, come over here.”

“What for?” Kasef asks as he stands up and walks over to her.

“You are going to help me demonstrate to the children how to properly use a staff, and I did say earlier I needed a sparring partner, remember?”

“Please don’t hit me over the head, I don’t want to get amnesia again.” This earned him some giggles from the children, and a small smile from Reyna.

“Alright, I’ll avoid hitting you too hard over the head.” She says with a chuckle before handing him a staff. “Okay kids, watch and learn. When you use one of these as a weapon, strike quickly!”

Kasef hardly had any time to react when Reyna swung her staff and it made contact with his left side. He gave a yelp as the staff hits him on his other side as well, dropping his weapon to clutch his sides. He could hear some of the kids laughing before he looked at Reyna with a scowl.

“You barely gave me time to react!” He accuses and she gives a shrug.

“I did say you had to strike quickly. Using these means you have to be quick in striking your opponent and blocking their attacks.”

“Again!” One of the children yells as Kasef picks up his staff.

“I’ll give you time to react this time, just try to block my attacks and see if you could land a blow on me.” Reyna says and gets back into her fighting position. “If you can manage to hit me I’ll let you bring your book to the next lesson.”

🍃🍃🍃

“She hit you that hard didn’t she?” Zolar laughs as Ibis is busy examining Kasef’s bruises. “That’s my daughter for you.”

“I still managed to land some blows on her.” Kasef mutters as he glances over at Reyna, who was also sporting bruises and being tended to by Ikaros.

“I let you hit me to make it easy for you!” She snaps and Zolar laughs again.

“You said he was a part of an army, he’s bound to have some fighting experience that kicked in when you two fought!” The Sunfire elf says and leans over to put a hand on her head. “Little raven you truly have found yourself a perfect match who can keep up with you.”

“You make it sound like she found herself a boyfriend.” Ikaros chuckles as Reyna’s face flushes red. “About time.”

“I do not like him in the way you all think!” Reyna yells and swats at Zolar’s hand. “You three are so embarrassing!”

“Now now you two, stop embarrassing our daughter, Cici’s not even here to join in with the teasing.” Ibis adds with a laugh. “If she says she doesn’t like him, we may as well take her word for it.”

“Give it a few weeks, she’ll change her mind.” Zolar chuckles. “Which reminds me, the gathering of the other Skywing clans will be coming soon.”

“What’s so important about it?” Kasef asks. “Mags mentioned it when she made Reyna try on a new shirt on my second day here.”

“It’s just a gathering where all Skywing elves come together to celebrate and whatnot, sort of like a festival.” Ikaros explains. “It’s normally held in bigger villages, but it’s very rare when it’s held in small ones like ours.”

“And there are all sorts of events too! Like races, tests of skills and courage, it’s so fun!” Reyna adds, her upset demeanor from earlier now gone. “Oh I hope Cici returns in time for the festival and doesn’t have to do another delivery run, these gatherings are no fun without them!”

“Assuming we can even go, I don’t think it’d be a good idea to take Kasef with us.” Ibis points out. “Most of our village has grown used to him, but what of the other elves who don’t even know why he’s here in the first place? While Nimel tolerates having him here in our village because Zubeia ordered us to care for him, the other clan leaders won’t be too happy to have a strange human attending the gathering.”

“But no one minds Zolar attending it, and it’s not unusual to have elves from other races attend the gathering, that’s not fair!” Reyna says with a frown. “And who cares if he even is a human?”

“Not everyone is as open minded as us Reyna, and a lot of elves have had a deep rooted dislike for humans because of the old stories of the bad things some had done in the past.”

“Well they should be! We can’t stay close minded forever!” And with that, she gets to her feet and storms off.

“You’d think after what happened to her mother she’d be wary of any humans who dared to cross the borders.” Zolar says once Reyna left the room.

“What happened?” Kasef asks in surprise.

“Nula passed away when she was just a baby, she died trying to keep a dark mage from passing the borders.” Ibis explains and looks down at the floor. “She succeeded, throwing herself and the mage into the lava rivers of the border. Reyna grew up hearing from so many how tragic it was that she lost her mother to a “vire human”, but for some reason she never seemed to hold any dislike towards humans. Always asking me questions about them, even though my knowledge on humans was just limited to what I have read about them.”

“And when Ibis had no answers to her questions she’d turn to me.” Ikaros adds and laughs. “I never understood why she was so curious about them, but I suppose it was because she had always grown up hearing about how bad they apparently were, and she wanted to know for herself. It’s like assuming every elf you meet is going to be an expert in magic just because you met one, when in reality not many of us are strongly connected to our respected primal source and can’t really do magic without a bit of a boost or without knowing how to use it properly.”

“I guess it makes sense, you can’t judge someone you’ve never met before based on assumptions you’ve heard about them.” Kasef says with a nod. “Though maybe it’d be for the best if I stay here, just to avoid having a bunch of angry bird elves trying to tear me apart.”

“Reyna and Cici really are rubbing off on him.” Zolar chuckles. “Let’s hope it stays with him when he recovers some more from the memory loss.”


	12. 🌹 12 🌹

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Just wanted to announce that Thorns officially has a Spotify Playlist! Mainly consists of music that fits Reyna and Kasef!
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0DvHK9LEaqIXDHLtRqm3Xz?si=Qy4uKjf3Q46X7JVHCH49yQ

“I think you are getting much better at sewing now." Mags chuckles as Kasef yelps in pain when he pricks his finger again. "I did ask if you wanted some thimbles."

"I can do this without them!" Kasef insists before sticking his injured finger into his mouth. "And I should try being a little more tolerant to pain like this."

"That's how my fiancee was like when he started out sewing, though when we were younger it was mainly to try and impress me."

"Well I'm not trying to impress anyone, I just want to learn a good skill to work for you so I won't have to be in the house all day while everyone else works. They all have jobs and I do nothing but sit around the house reading, writing notes and feeding the birds."

"Well I'm sure they'll be happy finding out that you've been working very hard at mastering a cross stitch." Mags chuckles before Kasef hands her the shirt he was trying to fix. "Not bad, you're improving quite a lot. Tell me, any luck in gaining some old memories?"

Kasef beams in pride before she hands him back his work. "Not as of recently. Though the last time I sparred with Reyna I felt like I had a similar experience in the past. Maybe I was a soldier, that’d explain how I even got to Xadia in the first place.”

“Well at least you are making progress, that’s for sure. How about we end the sewing lessons for today and you head home, Reyna can bandage your fingers when she gets back from her job.”

“Are you sure?” Kasef asks as he folds the shirt up to hand back to her. “I feel bad for leaving you alone to fix all these clothes.”

“I’m sure dear, you get home now. Otherwise Peach is going to think you’ve abandoned her.” Mags assures him before taking the shirt. “Get going now, I can handle this work on my own.”

As he was walking back towards Reyna’s home, Kasef thought back to what Mags had said in response to him telling her what he had at least started to remember. It was at least some progress, he at least knew his name, he had an idea from where he could have been from and what he probably did for a living, but what if he was wrong?

 _No, there’s no way I am wrong._ He tells himself. _Those memories and feelings feel right, and they have to be right. My name is Kasef, I came from somewhere where there was lots of sand, I have fighting skills that seem to be equivalent to those of a soldier. It’s what I know so far and what feels right._

The first thing Kasef noticed when he arrived at the house was that there was a large winged animal laying outside on the grass. It looked like some sort of lion creature with a pair of horns poking out from the top of it’s head, a mix of blue, copper and gold fur, and a pair of tails that seemed to be on fire. The creature lifted it’s head at the sound of his footsteps and gave a yawn, revealing a sharp pair of fangs in its mouth before shutting it and laying back down. Well it’s not like he wanted to touch it anyways. He hurries inside and quickly shuts the door behind him, but not before he hears someone talking with Zolar somewhere in the kitchen.

“...Lux Aurea needs you Zolar, I really need your help in retraining soldiers to replace the ones who were killed. And I need your help reforging a new sun staff as well, the one our mage weilded was taken and tainted.” He hears an unfamiliar female voice say, her accent sounded quite similar to Zolar’s. Who was that and why was she asking Zolar to leave the village?

“Janai I would love to help you, but I can’t just uproot my entire family and drag them across Xadia back to Lux Aurea. Ikaros has work here, Ibis, Cici and Reyna do as well.” He hears Zolar respond as he walks to the kitchen. “I can go with you, but how long must I be away?”

“Until we get things fixed, we’ve been trying for nearly two months, but we haven’t made that much progress yet.” The unknown woman says and gives a defeated sigh. “Things have been hard for us since my sister passed, we can’t harness the light of the sun to do magic, and without the sun staff we have no way to make any sunforge blades. Our mage who got bitten by this strange bug creature is still in a coma, and we don’t have any mages skilled enough to make a new staff. I’m worried that the dangers we’ve faced recently are only the beginning, and I really need your help, Lux Aurea needs your help. We need the Beast.”

“Janai, I know you need his help, but why didn’t you come sooner?” Ikaros asks.

“I didn’t think it’d be that bad! That was a mistake! Also, I know Reyna and Ibis stayed at the Spire for a few days after the war ended, have either of them seen any of those dark magic infested soldiers?”

Kasef could have sworn his heart almost stopped hearing that. Reyna mentioned a while back that his scars came from some sort of spell of dark magic that made him and many human soldiers dangerous, yet somehow the spell had worn off and reverted him back to his normal state with just a bunch of scars on his body. What did this elf want with him?

“No, they haven’t seen any.” He hears Ikaros respond and lets out a quiet sigh of relief. “Why do you ask?”

“We had been ordered by the rulers of the human kingdoms to return any escaped soldiers to face punishment, for standing with the dark mage.”

Punishment? Before Kasef could even hear a response from this Janai, he hears an excited chirp and feels something small hit him right in the chest that he managed to catch.

“Peach! You need to be quiet!” He hisses as the little bird gave him a confused look and tilted her little head. Kasef sighs in annoyance before lifting his hand to his shoulder and placing her there to sit before creeping towards the door. “Okay we are just going to slip outside and -”

“Ah!”

Kasef really wasn’t expecting anyone to round the corner of the kitchen, yet now he found himself being stared at by a female elf with a startled and worried Zolar and Ikaos behind her. The elf had dark skin similar to the Zolar’s, but her hair was a dark red and the gold markings on her face were different as well, and she was dressed in what looked like red and gold armor. She wore a look of surprise as well that suddenly melted into an enraged one and grabbed the handle of the sword she had strapped to her side.

"You are supposed to be dead!" She snarls, charging forward before Zolar grabs her to pull her back. "Let go!"

"Janai he's a guest!" Zolar tries to say as he pulls her back as Kasef backs towards the door in panic. "We don’t attack guests!"

"I don't care! Do you even know what that thing is?!”

“A normal human boy with a bird?” Ikaros responds as Zolar struggles to keep his hold on the elf.

“That thing is a danger to this household!” Janai screams angrily. “A monster who nearly killed your own daughter and several of my soldiers!”

"What's going on?" Kasef turns and gives a sigh of relief to see Reyna in the doorway. “Zolar what’s she doing here?”

"Janai is not too happy with our human guest!" Zolar responds as he manages to pry the female elf's hand away from her sword. "Janai, Zubeia gave Reyna permission to bring him here and return him when he's recovered. We're trying to keep the peace, don't you see?"

“You think that monster won’t hesitate to hurt you or your family? Ask several of my soldiers who suffered broken bones from getting trampled and thrown around by him in battle before I had to fight him myself!”

" _He_ is not a monster, _his_ name is Kasef, and he's my patient." Reyna adds, walking to stand in front of the scared human. "I am aware of him being a part of the dark mage's army, but he doesn't remember anything about his past because of a bad head injury."

"That... _thing_ nearly killed us!" Janai snapped angrily. “Didn’t you see it in the middle of the battle? It nearly killed your human friend!”

“You’re exaggerating!” Reyna scoffs. “I never crossed paths with him in the fight!”

“Did...did I almost kill someone?” Kasef asks and everyone looks at him in surprise. “I...I know I don’t remember much of that fight, just bits and pieces, and this rage I had felt that I still don’t understand. But...if what I had done was wrong, I should go back to wherever I came from and face whatever punishment awaits those who served this dark mage I kept hearing about.”

"You almost killed three of the humans who we were aiding, along with several other elves.” Janai states coldly. “I don’t understand why the dragon queen would let you stay here when you should have been returned to whatever kingdom you came from.”

“He doesn’t remember anything Janai, he’s suffering from amnesia.” Ikaros states quickly as Zolar loosened his grip on the elf. "And he's harmless as well, it's not like -"

"You don't know if that spell could be activated again! I received word from the humans in Katolis that the dark mage is still alive! And that monster," Janai points an accusing finger at Kasef, "was the biggest and most dangerous soldier in the army. You remember the monster that almost trampled your human friend and the human general Reyna? This is the same one, the one you insist on protecting."

It hurt Kasef to see the startled and worried looks the two elves were giving him, and now even Reyna was looking at him with fear in her eyes. Was he really that dangerous? If he was, why did the dragon queen even allow him to remain alive?

“Maybe...I should leave. Go back home before that mage somehow finds me.” Kasef suggests quietly and removes Peach from his shoulder to hold her out to Reyna. “I don’t want to put any of you in danger if I really am that dangerous, I’ll leave right now.”

“No, you’re not going anywhere!” Reyna protests and pushes Peach back to him. “Kasef you are still under my care, I can’t let you leave while you are still like this.”

“My hand and eye don’t hurt, my head no longer aches, you even said the other day that I’m perfectly fine and have recovered from anything except for the memory loss. Reyna I can’t stay here and risk being a danger to your family and village, what if that mage somehow finds me and reactivates the spell?”

“He’s not going to do that, Viren will never find you here.” Reyna insists and glares at Janai. “You have my word Kasef.”

“Reyna, he needs to go back. You know he would have to go back when he was well enough to travel.” Ikaros points out.

“Maybe going back home will help me recover my memory.” Kasef adds helpfully. “I know I was going to go back at some point, maybe this is a sign that it’s finally my time?”

Reyna gives a huff and turns to face away from him. “Fine, but I’m coming with you. You don’t know what dangers lie in Xadia, and if you die before reaching the borders of the human kingdom Zubeia would probably fry me alive. And I know someone in one of the closest human kingdoms who hopefully can give us a hand.”

“The human soldier who got married?” Janai asks and Reyna nods. “Ah I remember her, she’s quite close with the young king of Katolis and that is one of the two kingdoms closest to the border. I’m sure the king will be willing to help you both, hopefully.”

🍃🍃🍃

“Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?” Kasef asks Reyna later that night as they were washing the dinner dishes. “You don’t have to go all the way with me, you can just leave me at the border and I could head to the closest village from there.”

“I am very sure, plus I’m sure you will also die out there on your own.” The elf insists as she finishes drying the wet plate to put it away. “Besides, you probably wouldn’t know where the capital of the kingdom is and who my friend is to ask her for help.”

“Ibis told me you only knew her for like...two days, how can you trust her?”

“Well you trusted me to care for you after awakening from a coma, didn’t you? Besides, Enya is a good human, she can help. And we've been exchanging letters as well after the peace was established, so we could know each other better.”

Kasef gives a laugh before he passes her another wet dish to dry. “Well maybe this trip can expose you to what humans are like.”

“I know some are not fans of elves, and I will be expecting some to not be too happy to see me on their side of the continent, but I won’t let that hold me back.” Reyna assures him. “And on our way to the border I can show you some nice places in Xadia as we travel as well! Oh that reminds me, I’m going to need to borrow a map from Ikaros so we don’t get lost. Otherwise that’s gonna cause some problems!”

"Are we going to be walking the whole way? If we are I'm going to need my boots to get fixed and you'll probably need a pair as well, and some camping gear and supplies."

"Oooh don't remind me, I'm not looking forward to having to wear boots for the majority of this trip. Thanks for the reminder."

Kasef couldn't help but laugh at the face Reyna was making at the thought of having to put on shoes. Since as long as he had known her, she had always been bare foot, refusing to even put a simple pair of slippers even in the house. She had always insisted she never needed shoes since she was always losing them as a child, but would only put on a pair in the winter to not get cold feet at Ikaros and Ibis' insistence.

"And you can't fly me all the way across Xadia, I'm too heavy for that." Kasef adds with a chuckle, earning him a scowl from Reyna.

"I'll have you know that I managed to carry your unconscious self into the Storm Spire, so enough of the "I'm too heavy for you" crap." The elf retorts. "I can probably carry you for some time, you will have to be the one holding on tightly. And as for travel, we can just find ourselves a ride, there are plenty of Xadian animals who are friendly enough to let us ride them."

“Like…”

“You’ll see!”

“That’s reassuring.” Kasef mutters.


	13. 🌹 13 🌹

"...and do you have enough blankets? You know how some nights in the summer can get quite chilly.” Ikaros asks, holding up another folded blanket. “I remember one time when Ibis left with just -”

“Oh my ancients, we already have four blankets!” Reyna groans. “And you already made us pack two sets of cloaks! Can we leave now?”

"You're fussing over them like they're going to war." Zolar laughs as he hands Kasef a knife in a leather sheath. "I know Reyna already has her herb knife, hunting knife and a dagger, but you should have one - just in case."

"Nothing wrong with an extra knife, can't be too careful." The human agrees as he accepts the weapon.

It had been a week since his decision to leave for the human kingdoms with Reyna, and while he was eager to get home, Kasef couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness at the thought of never getting to return to the village. He'd grown used to the place, a lot of villagers now were on friendly terms with him, he was always being followed by the children and being asked to play with him or toss them into the air for flying practice. He really was going to miss it, as well as Reyna's family. At least he would have Reyna and Peach for company on this trip.

Ikaros had been fussing over them for the past five minutes, insisting they take extra blankets and even more food, making Reyna put on boots (which she was not happy about), and giving them various maps of the human kingdoms that Kasef was sure were a bit outdated.

"Who knows when we're going to see them again! And who knows if the extra blankets or cloaks can come in use!" Ikaros huffs and folds his arms over his chest. "I'm surprised Ibis isn't the one fussing over them as well."

"Because I'm the one drawing up some routes for them to take!" They hear Ibis say before he comes down the stairs with an armload of scrolls before handing them off to Kasef. "I've mostly detailed the Xadian map, listed spots you can rest in, an area you can find some amblers in if you decide to cross the Midnight Desert. Once you get to the border located near Katolis, you'll find a base of humans stationed there, just ask for general Amaya or commander Gren and they'll help you from there."

“Wait isn’t there a huge river of lava separating us from the human kingdoms?” Kasef asks as he tries to not drop the scrolls. “And isn’t the one way to cross it destroyed?”

“You are forgetting, I can fly us.” Reyna says, raising her arms and gesturing to the freshly painted runes.

“No, too dangerous. That is too risky.” Ibis says quickly. “You’ll be dragged down by the weight of all your supplies while trying to carry Kasef as well.”

“Perhaps ask queen Zubeia for a dragon to fly you across the border?” Zolar suggests. “You mentioned about telling her when you were planning on taking him back.”

“That’s a lot safer, I should probably redraw you some routes to take to get to the Spire -”

“No no! We’ll figure this out on our own!” Reyna says, snatching the scrolls from Kasef and turning him to open one of the many satchels he was carrying to stuff them in. “We are wasting daylight!”

“Don’t forget Peach!” Zolar yells as Reyna pushed the human towards the door. At the sound of her name, Peach immediately gave a screech and hops off her perch to fly towards the two, landing herself on Kasef’s shoulder.

“Remind me again why I agreed to let you take her with us?” Reyna asks as Kasef opens the door before shoving him through it.

“Emotional support for the two of us.” Kasef responds with a laugh. “Oh, looks like Cici brought us some friends to see us off.”

Cici and several elves were standing a few feet from them, ranging from children to some adults, and even Mags was among them as well. He certainly wasn’t expecting this.

“I figured, you should at least get some elves to see you both off before you left.” Cici says as they walk up to the two. “I was only gonna bring Mags, but after some elves heard you two were leaving today they insisted on coming to see you both off.”

“You’ve certainly left quite an impression after your first day here Kasef, and we certainly won’t forget it.” Mags states and gestures to the other elves. “Many of them may have not liked humans so much, but after you’ve tried helping around the village when you weren’t stuck at home learning our language and history, it seems like they had a change of heart towards your race. And surprisingly many are sorry to see you leave so soon.”

“Well if I can find my family, I can always try to visit.” Kasef says with a smile before one of the elflings, a young boy with a mismatched set of eyes, steps forward with something in his hands.

"Here!" The child says as he holds out a black piece of cloth towards the human. "I know we're used to your eye scar, but the other humans might be mean to you about it."

"Hey this looks like the cloth from the clothes I was wearing previously before I was temporarily wearing Zolar's stuff." Kasef says as he takes the cloth. “Didn’t I give this to you Mags?”

"That's because it is." Mags states with a proud smile. "I know you said that you didn't want the old rags and to reuse whatever I could salvage, but I figured you'd at least could have something to cover up your scar if you didn't want any weird stares from the humans."

“Try it on!” Cici says with a grin.

Kasef then puts the cloth over his scarred eye and carefully ties it in place before looking to the crowd. "I feel like a pirate." He says loudly. This earns him a laugh from the children and a few of the adults.

“You certainly look like one.” Reyna agrees with a laugh and extends her hand to him. “Okay, ready go?”

Kasef looks back to the crowd of villagers, then looks back to the door where Reyna’s fathers stood, then to Cici, before turning his attention back to Reyna. “Not really, but we should get going before I change my mind.”

Reyna nods before she takes his hand and leads him forward. Kasef couldn’t help glancing back as they walked, the house getting smaller and smaller until it was no longer visible through the treeline. It took a while until they emerged from the edge of the trees, nothing but wide space and rolling green hills ahead.

“So, which way to the Spire?” Kasef asks as Reyna pulls out a map. “I don’t exactly remember which direction we came from.”

“South, we went north to come here.” Reyna responds. “So...a few days worth of walking unless we can find a mount to get us there faster.”

“Your dad mentioned an...ambler?”

“Oh those! Have you ever seen one?”

“Uh...no.”

“They’re these giant creatures that have super long legs, and they can travel pretty quickly as well.” Reyna explains, lifting one of her arms up and pointing upwards. “And they’re really docile too! You can even put saddles on them and they’ll immediately bond with you if you give them some treats.”

“Are there areas we could find them in on our way to the Spire?” Kasef asks gesturing to the map in her other hand.

“Unfortunately no, but when we’re headed towards the desert we might find a few.” Reyna says as she drops her arm and holds the map out to Kasef. “If we’re lucky, maybe we can find one with a saddle and ask the elf who owns it if they can help us out.”

“That would be nice, but we could either end up with an elf who outright refuses to help us, or one who is gonna try getting us to pay them and we have no money.” Kasef points out. “All we have are food, some weapons, blankets and various camping supplies.”

“Relax, we’ll just tell them we’re traveling on the dragon queen’s orders. Who would ever dare to disobey Zubeia?”

“Fair point.”

As they walked in the direction of the Spire, Kasef thought back to what he knew about himself so far. So far he knew his name, he probably lived in or had been to the desert kingdom of Neolandia, he knew how to fight, he seemed to have a dislike for vegetables (cooked or uncooked), he seemed to have a way with birds, he most definitely had family waiting for him back wherever his home was, and...he probably had witnessed someone getting killed. It still made him shudder at that dream, the one with the screams of frightened children before he caught the strong stench of blood. Who had he witnessed getting killed or wounded badly enough to bleed? He shouldn’t be thinking about it, he had to be thinking of more positive things like...

“Ah! I didn’t think we’d see these so far out here.” He says as he stops to bend over and pluck a bright yellow and pink spotted adoraburr out of the grass. “I’m really gonna miss these when we are no longer in Xadia.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll see plenty of them on our journey.” Reyna says from ahead as Kasef stops to grab another and another out of the grass. “Kasef you’re slowing us down with your adoraburr picking!”

“But they’re so fluffy!”

Reyna groans and turns around to walk back over to him. “Who would have thought a soldier working under a dark mage would have grown a soft spot of the tiniest creatures from the place he grew up hating.”

"You know what would be funny? If I turned out to be royalty." Kasef says as he holds out an adoraburr to her. “It’d be something out of one of those books you and Ikaros gave me to read when I was getting the hang of the elf language.”

"Hmm...I can't picture you as a prince." Reyna says and laughs. "But that'd be an interesting case. You seem more like a soldier than royalty."

“A prince who doesn’t like eating vegetables.” Kasef adds with a laugh and reaches up to give Peach a scratch. “And probably owns a bunch of beautiful and exotic birds. And Peach would be a new member of that bunch.”

“Well we’ll have to wait and see, your majesty.”

\---

“I managed to find some wood!” Reyna yells as she approaches their campsite where Kasef is busy trying to build a ring of stones around their campfire. “And plenty of it! We should have enough to supply us for the night.”

“Oh good, I was worried we’d have nothing to keep us warm.” The human says as he looks up from his work before she dumps an armload of thick sticks next to him. “That...that’s a lot of firewood.”

“Plenty for our fire.” Reyna says proudly as she knelt down next to him to start arranging the sticks. “Okay so if we get up at a reasonable hour tomorrow morning, we should be able to reach the Spire by evening. And if Zubeia is willing, maybe she could convince one of the dragons at the Spire to gives us both a ride to the border so we don’t have to waste time going around it or passing through it during the day.”

“Wouldn’t crossing it during the night be safer?” Kasef asks as she takes out some flint from her bag. “No burning sun, the sand won’t be as hot and we could actually cross it more quickly?”

“Have you not ready any of the geography books I lent you? Crossing the desert at night is practically a death sentence!”

“Why is that?”

“Soulfangs! They burrow during the day and come out at night, the desert is practically swarming with them!” Reyna stops her lighting to grab one of the unused sticks to draw in the dirt something that looked like a snake. “Their bite is lethal, they practically suck the soul right out of you, leaving you a barely living husk. Rayla told me she actually witnessed one of the mounts her godfather lent her and Callum get bitten, the poor thing is still probably running wild through the desert or already lying dead somewhere for buzzards to eat.”

“Oh...that explains why you need an ambler.” Kasef says with a shudder. “Wouldn’t going around the desert be safer?”

“Ha ha, no I would rather not be anywhere near that kingdom.” Reyna says as she stabs the snake drawing. “Midnight Desert is faster, and there is an oasis we can rest in during the night that has a border to prevent Soulfangs from entering.”

She was pretty sure that talk of the Soulfangs scared him enough that they ended up preparing their campfire and eating a meal of some dread jerky in silence. It was already dark now, but Reyna wasn’t tired enough to sleep.

“You need a blanket?” she hears Kasef asks before turning over to see him opening up the blanket draped over his shoulders. “I am more than willing to share.”

“That is the blanket I had you wrapped up in when we were leaving the Spire.” Reyna comments as she scoots over to be sitting next to him and for the blanket to be draped over her shoulder.

“And the same one I’ve been sleeping under when I slept on your couch.”

Reyna gives a laugh. “Oh that’s right. At least it doesn’t stink.”

“I don’t stink and neither does the blanket.” Kasef protests with a pout before it cracks into a smile. "So how do you feel about getting to leave Xadia? Excited? Nervous?"

"Mmm...a bit of both I suppose. Though I'm mostly a bit worried about how the humans will react to us if we enter a village together.” Reyna admits with a small shrug. “It’s been so long since the established peace, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be some humans holding resentment towards elves.”

“Well they should learn to get along with them, look how well that went with your village. I managed to get a quarter of the folks to like me.”

“Most of them are kids who find interest in your cute and little round ears.”

Kasef gives a laugh. “Yeah they keep asking why my ears aren’t pointy. And on the subject of appearances, I never got to ask why you have those feathers on your right cheek and most of your chest. I kind of assumed it was something all Skywings had but Mags said that wasn’t the case at all. I asked her about it and she said to ask you since it happened to you.”

"You really want to know about these?" Reyna asks pointing to the feathers clumped on her cheek. "I suppose it's expected, I've been asked about the feathers multiple times. Someone once asked me if it was a deformity I was born with."

"But it's not, right?"

"No, but it's a reminder for me to not do certain stupid things involving magic. When we were about six or seven, Cici's wings hit a slight growth spurt, one that made them large enough to be able to carry them when they flew. However the wings weren't that strong, so we had to do exercises to strengthen them. Around that time I wanted to learn how to fly too, since I was learning magic from my father and there was a spell I could do that could give me wings.”

“That one that turns your arms into wings.” Kasef says, gesturing to the markings on her arm before cracking a grin. “Wait, you actually painted the runes on your face?”

“Hey I was a kid, I wanted some cool looking paint marks and I thought the mage wing runes turned in a certain way and wouldn't be activated when I said the incantation!” Reyna protests, swatting at his arm and that just made him laugh. “I wouldn’t stop crying with half of my face and chest covered in black feathers! Even when the spell wore off not all of the feathers came out, and we had to actually pluck whatever didn’t fall out. Some of these wouldn’t even come out no matter how hard we tried so I was stuck with them forever, it took me weeks to stop wearing a scarf and a long time to get the courage to try the spell again.”

“I’m guessing you thought the feathers would regrow?”

“Yeah, but they didn’t. Of course when I started trying to fly again, I broke my left horn off almost entirely. At least that didn’t stop me from learning to fly.”

“I was going to ask about that.” Kasef chuckles and reaches up to gently touch the broken horn that was barely poking out of her hair. “They don’t grow back if they break?”

“Nah, it’s like that forever.” Reyna says with a shake of her head. “Zolar tried making me an attachment so I wouldn’t feel self conscious, but I actually liked the way I looked with a single horn so he never made it.”

“Well it was nice of him to consider making you something so you wouldn’t feel awkward about missing a horn, but seeing how there were some elves missing pieces of their own horns I’d say it’d probably be common to lose a part of one's horn.”

“Kind of, some just put ornament pieces to cover the broken parts to look nicer.” Reyna laughs before giving a yawn. “I’ll keep watch and make sure the fire doesn’t go out.”

“No you just yawned right now, you’ll fall asleep.” Kasef says as he removed his half of the blanket to wrap it around her. “I’ll watch for now and wake you up in a few hours. You and Peach get some sleep.”

“Fine, but you better wake me up in a few hours.” Reyna agrees before adjusting herself to be laying against his shoulder. “If you get uncomfortable just let me know.”

“Trust me, this is fine.” Kasef chuckled and gave her a small smile. “Get your rest Reyna, you’ll need it.”


End file.
